The Collinsport Chronicles VII: Haunted Bureaucrat
by Maryland Rose
Summary: Frank Torrance had been the victim of a vampire. Now he is the victim of purely human greed and ambition. And he finds it more terrifying still. In the meantime, Sister Kira advances her wicked plans, and Kenneth, Julia's husband is a pawn in her game.
1. Chapter 1

Louella escaped Beth's fate and has been reunited with Willie. Sister Kira, the supposedly saintly healer brought in by Quentin has a sinister agenda yet to be uncovered. Quentin has been blackmailed into marrying Carolyn. Kenneth, Julia's husband has become paralyzed.

* * *

IDEALIST BUREAUCRAT

Chapter 1

Louella woke up slowly. She felt warm and comfortable in Willie's arms. She nestled hersef in them and closed her eyes. It was a quiet, happy feeling there, as his heartbeat fluttered against her cheek.

Soon he would wake up. And he'd be hungry... Boy, did he get hungry in the morning...

She slipped out of his arms, trying not to awaken him, and went to the kitchen.

She was going to make him the biggest breakfast this side of Philadelphia!

* * *

Julia watched Kenneth. He had regained consciousness, but kept slipping back.

She knew that it didn't help Kenneth if she stayed there, rooted to the spot. She knew the advice she gave people in the same situation.

"Go to work. get busy, do anything to get your mind off it..."

But what could she forget what Kenneth as going through? What right had she?

She recognized the symptoms. Survivor's guilt. But knowing the proper name didn't change anything.

She looked at the strained face, letting her tears flow.

With luck, he might regain use of one arm, she had been told.

Was that all she could look forward to?

* * *

Could she do it? Angelique wondered Would she be able to?

She knew that she wanted to do it more to impress Barnabas than anything else. If Julia and Kenneth profited, so much the better.

But she could fail. her powers were great, but there were things she couldn't do.

She was successful in healing those she herself had made sick. And then not always. There was an evil streak in her powers. Try as she did, she way more successful doing evil than good.

If she succeeded in healing Kenneth..

But she could fail. And Barnabas would think that it was all a trick to get him back...

If she healed Kenneth that should prove something, at least to herself.

* * *

"Do you have the keys for David's chains?" Barnabas asked Phillip.

"Here they are" Phillip gave them to Barnabas. "Why do you want them"

"Come and you'll see."

"You are not planning on releasing him...he isn't cured yet."

"I know. I also know that Julia interrupted his treatment and that now I am taking over. I am going to take a gamble on him."

David sat morosely on the bed, his back turned to them.

"Hello, David" Barnabas said.

David grunted without turning back.

"I am releasing you."

"You are?" quickly David turned around, in surprise.

"Under certain conditions. You are to remain in town. You are to keep clean of the stuff. I talked with the manager of the supermarket, and you have a job there."

"In the supermarket? " There was derision in David's voice.

"You'll work at it. You can keep the money you make there. When the full moon comes, you get in the cage. That's all. Do you think that's fair?"

"If I promise to do all that" David couldn't keep from wincing, "will you let me go?"

"Yes."

"Then I promise."

"You are crazy if you believe him." Phillip interjected "you unchain him and he skips town."

"I don't think so."

"He's going to skip town, I tell you."

"I'll make sure that he doesn't" And this time he flashed a significant smile.

"No!" David understood "You are not doing that to me!"

"I don't have many alternatives. I will not keep you chained here like an animal, waiting for you to cooperate with Julia. I will give you as much of a normal life as I can" he paused for effect "you can either open your collar or roll up your sleeve. It's all the same to me."

* * *

Sister Kira opened her mail. It waas the usual. Request for prayers. Her fan letters, she called them.

Except that Bob Woods had written to her.

She wondered. Was it safe for him to do so? And what was so important?

Inside she found a Xerox copy of Representative Evans' check to Sebastian Saw, and then what he could figure out of the relationship between her and Barnabas Collins.

"So, Representative Evans had a skeleton in her closet. And Bob Woods thought that there may be a way to profit form it."

Bob Woods was rather new. He could not yet tell when a lead had a big payoff and when it was a waste of time...

At least he had no idea that Barnabas Collins was a vampire. If he did, like all beginners, he would be more quick to see the advantages than the disadvantages of trying to exploit the situation.

Still, it may be worthwhile to look into it.

* * *

Roger let Carolyn lead him into his room.

"Everything is going to be all right now. You'll see." she told him.

Roger nodded. He wished it was true. But their troubles were not over. She had enemies and they would not rest until they destroyed her. They way they had destroyed Nixon.

But not if he could do something about it.

"I am getting married " Carolyn said "I want you to give me away."

"Married? To whom?"

"Quentin."

* * *

Frank demonstrated to Sabrina the proper way to use chopsticks.

"It isn't so hard." he explained. "Just keep one steady and move the other. And never cross them."

"Like this?"

"That's right."

Sabrina attacked the bowl of rice next to her.

"Hey! It works!"

"I told you it would." his voice became hard. "this isn't a social call, is it?"

"No. I want something out of you."

"In my official capacity, of course."

"Representative Evans is interested in conducting an investigation of OSHA."

"And you want me to leak to her?"

"You must know that there is corruption and inefficiency there."

"Of course I do." Fran's face set. "But I will not turn it to Representative Evans to gut. Because that's what she wants to do. She wants to destroy it and all it stands for. Corrupt it may be a times. Inefficient too. But still it mostly does a good job, and we need it."

* * *

"Is David cured?" Iris asked Barnabas.

"No. Not really."

"So how come you let him go?"

"He gets locked up in the full moon. In the meantime, he's got a job at the supermarket and can come and go as he pleases."

Iris shook her head. "It won't work. He'll be back on junk before you can say 'Mary Jane"".

"He won't" Barnabas smiled "I made sure he didn't"

Iris considered his meaning. "It is only a stopgap solution." she finally said.

"I know. He has to go to Julia for a cure. But he has to want it first. And I think he'll be more amenable if he can go out, earn his own money, meet people, have a bit of fun, and the rest of it, instead of just sitting on the bed and being miserable."

"Maybe" Iris wasn't sure about trusting David, not even under Barnabas' control. "Julia's going to have kittens when she finds out what you've done to her patient."

"It won't be for a while." he sighed "I wish she would scream at me. But she sits there and stares...It was such a senseless accident..."

"Yes" Iris kissed him impulsively. "I feel so guilty."

"Guilty?"

"For being so happy when she..."

"You are not the only one" Barnabas acknowledged "Do you know how long it took me to convince Willie that it was all right to go on a vacation? God knows that those kids need that trip."

"Specially with the wedding coming up. If you want my opinion, those two deserve each other. Did you get an invitation?"

"Yes." Barnabas looked unhappy. Carolyn's petty cruelties were sometimes too much to bear.

"Of course, you can't make it. Not at that time." Iris shook her head. "I'll have to shop for a wedding gift. I wonder where I can get a rattlesnake?"

* * *

How did you do with Torrance yesterday?" Maggie asked Sabrina.

"No sale. he knows enough, but won't give it to me."

"Did he say why?"

"Because he does not care to gut his agency just to get you on TV."

"Did you explain to him that there was more than that?"

"Saving taxpayer's money" Sabrina said derisively.

"What's wrong with that?"

"That suddenly that's all I hear around. Apart from saving taxpayers' money, what else do you do? We don't have an energy policy. We don't have a National Health Insurance. All those things that were promised if Carter was elected..."

"Blame Carter. or the public." Maggie sighed. "Do you think I don't know it? But that's the way it is. The sixties are over."

"And now the Me generation has taken over."

"Right. The Me generation. In the sixties you could get people to demonstrate for civil rights or against the war. Now what do they demonstrate about?"

"Proposition 13 and nuclear plants."

"See the difference? In the sixties, it was for the sake of others, the blacks or the Vietnamese. Now it is THEIR taxes, and the nuclear plants in their backyards."

"Some people still keep at it."

"Sure like Barnabas and Joan Baez. But they can afford to. I can't. I have to keep running for reelection."

"So you sold out?"

"I try to get things done the only way I can. You say that we don't have an energy policy? You are right. You know something else? Maine has an unbelievable reservoir of hydroelectric energy that ahs never been exploited. Ever heard of the Passamaquoddy project? It was an idea of Roosevelt's, to install a tidal energy plant in Maine. It never got off the ground. That's what I am fighting for. That's why I make the deals I make.

Sabrina looked skeptical.

"So I make my deals. So I try to cut taxes. So I try to hand the people back home some bureaucrat's head on a platter. In the meantime I let Barnabas and Davenport give a try to hydroelectric power. /And they are not the only ones. Money that I can scrape from Federal waste I cannel there. Or didn't you notice it yet? And if I can get the Passamaquoddy project off the ground, I will be able to sell it because of my reputation for slashing taxies and keeping such a sharp eye on waste. And if the price for it is nailing a few scalps to the wall, I am willing to pay it.

"If you can get away with it."

"I can try. Keep working at Torrance."

* * *

"So that's it, baby." Willie kissed Louella "you and I are going on a vacation."

"Leave now?" Louellla looked around.

"Sure. I cheated you of a proper honeymoon. We are going to have it now."

"Willie" Louella took his face in her hands. "you don't have to do this."

"I want to."

"You are a good man." She kissed him., then added. " I never thanked Barnabas properly. Would you tell him that I want to talk to him?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Quentin looked with disgust at the invitations that Carolyn was writing.

"Why not a simple ceremony?" he had pleaded.

"I want to make it big. I want everyone to know that I am Carolyn Collins, and it will be my children who will inherit the family business.

Her children. That was all she wanted from him. So that her children would have that magical last name of Collins...

He wondered why he let himself be used that way. Why couldn't he have the courage to tell her to go jump in the lake, and to Hell with the consequences.

* * *

Julia sat on one of the outdoor cafes. The hustle and bustle of the summer season was all around her. All that gayety hurt her. But there was nowhere else for her to go. In the hospital they had hinted rather strongly that she was getting in the way. Going to Barnabas' wouldn't help. He wouldn't be up until dusk. All she would do there is get in Phillip's way.

So she sat there and watched people go by."

A woman moved past her, aiding herself with a cane.

Julia recognized her. She had been in a wheelchair less than two months ago. They had said she would never walk again. But Sister Kira had proven them wrong.

"Sister Kira's a fraud" She heard Kenneth's voice in her mind. "that was just an incorrect diagnosis of a psychosomatic aliment."

Yet she walked while Kenneth...

Kenneth didn't believe in many things she knew were true. Hadn't he been surprised that someone as intelligent as Barnabas believed in ghosts?

* * *

Sister Kira caressed the little wooden doll she had used on Dr. Anderson. By stroking the doll daily she made sure that the vertebrae in Dr. Anderson's neck remained out of joint.

The doctors must give up on him before she tried anything.

She felt a tug under her fingertips. Kenneth Anderson's bones were trying to fit together again.

There was a lot of fight in the man, yet.- Kira respected that - he was a troublesome fighter.

She pushed her fingertips hard against the doll's neck. There, the bones would be out of joint a bit longer.

* * *

Angelique held the model of human vertebrae in her hand. She had to make those bones align themselves and to mend the damaged nerves so that Dr. Anderson could move again.

She felt herself shake. There was no strength in her hands as she fought against the simulated bones. She twisted them more or less into shape, but they pulled themselves out of joint again.

Tears came to her eyes as she remembered the words "Much better at putting curses than at removing them."

But Dr. Anderson did not suffer from a curse. It was an accident. A stupid accident..

She tried again...It had been so easy to blind Sam Evans...so easy to make Sarah sick...it was so easy to do harm.

"Why won't you obey me?" she said venomously to the plastic bones. "Am I not good enough for you?"

* * *

"Where's the report you and Angelique were supposed to get ready for today?" Megan asked Tammy.

"You can have my material." Tammy shrugged to show her opinion of Megan in particular, and of Collinsport in general. "For Angelique's half you'll have to find her. She hasn't been around for two days now."

"I see. All right, give me your half."

Tammy opened her drawer and extended the sheaf of papers stiffly.

"You are still at it." Megan commented.

"Still at what?"

"Oh, little things like making sure I don't touch you." She saw Tammy's protest and cut it short. "Do you act that way around Angelique? Because I got a thick skin and don't care what you do or say. But she's been rather sensitive lately and you might be the reason she hasn't shown up."

"I never said anything to her. She's probably busy with some mumbo-jumbo of hers."

"Mumbo jumbo? Is that what you call it?"

"It is a good name for it." Tammy said insolently.

"So that's what you said that made her upset. That, and acting as she was something the cat dragged in."

"So what if I did?"

"So what?" You are a good operative. But so's she. And she's a lot more pleasant to work with. If I have to make a choice between the two of you, I won't pick you.

"No. You won't." There was grim amusement in Tammy's voice. "of course, you prefer your own kind."

"My own kind?" It was an effort to keep her temper with Tammy around "what do you mean by kind?"

"That you are white. Or that you are a bloodsucker. Take your pick. But then all brothers know that honkies are bloodsuckers."

Megan looked up, begging for patience. "And I thought that Sabrina was abrasive" she muttered.

* * *

"You wanted to see me?" Barnabas asked Louella gently.

"Yes." Louella crossed and uncrossed her hands nervously. "I had to see you before I went on vacation.

"I hope you take the bus or the train. This way you'll avoid the gas lines. Willie's truck burns too much gas. I tried to get him to get a more fuel-efficient one."

Louella nodded impatiently. "Yes. yes."

Barnabas decided to cut his lecture short. The energy crisis would have to wait until Willie came back. "What was it that you wanted to tell me?"

"I wanted to.. to apologize to you."

"What for?" he asked, surprised.

"The way I treated you. I never though of you like a human being. I never tried to get to know you..."

"It is difficult at first." he smiled ruefully "there was a time when I didn't treat myself as a human being."

"I should have tried. I shouldn't have believed Quentin."

"Part of what he said was true." Barnabas said apologetically.

"He never told me the other parts. And then the other one...the one who saved me from the gulls... He's like you."

"In a way" Barnabas laughed good humouredly "but I promise you that if you invite me over, you won't have to hide the good silverware."

"What you mean by that?"

"That he will steal it." he sighed "Derek has many good qualities. Honesty is not one of them. He has an habit: playing the horses. He is keeping three bookies off welfare all by himself.."

"You are putting me on."

"He told me so himself." he put his hand on Louella's arms. "Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?"

"No"

"You have been afraid of me for a long time. More than it was deserved. And now you might be going to the other extreme. We are not the devils we are painted to be. But still there is a lot to be desired in our behavior. You can ask Chris what I tried to do to Amy. Or ask Joe Haskell for a description of Maggie when she went mad. As for the others...Derek is a petty thief, and Megan commits a Federal Offense a month."

"I treated you rotten." Louella shook her head.

"And don't do the same thing with Willie, either. You shouldn't have left him. But it was his fault, too. So don't go on acting as if you owed him something. Don't go on any guilt trip."

"I want to make it up to him for what I put him through."

"Don't. You'll be doing him no favors. "Barnabas caught her by the shoulders and made her look at him. "Willie was a battered child. I know because he told me so himself. And that thing keeps passing on. I don't want Willie to become a child abuser. Or a wife beater. And it might happen if you go on a guilt trip. You have to understand, for a long time love for him that someone was getting hurt. I beat him badly inn 1967. I am ashamed of it now.. But I know that his attachment to me began with those beatings. Now that you hurt him, he loves you too. He has yet to learn to love without the hurt, Please help him learn that."

Barnabas wondered how much sense Louella was making of this.

"If you have any problems, let me know at once. Don't make excuses for him."

"I hurt him badly. He's so trusting, so lovable...And I believed that nasty lie about you and him..."

"There, you are doing what I told you not to do." He sighed. "All right, if you want to feel guilty, come to me and cry on my shoulder. But never, _never_, do it with Willie."

"Cry on your shoulder?" She asked with surprise.

"I got a lot of practice in it."

"Yes." Louella nodded "I remember what Frances told me. That if you hadn't been there she'd have died."

"Yes." Barnabas was embarrassed. "But I was looking for something else when I went to her."

"I know." she twisted her hands again. "Willie told me something about it. It was one of the reasons why I left him."

Barnabas knew what she meant, but said nothing. It was all up to her, now.

"He said that I was afraid of you because...because you had never done to me what you did to Frances. That if you did, I'd know that it was such a little thing, that mattered to little."

Barnabas nodded, understandingly.

"Would you...would you do it to me now?

Barnabas considered it. He had to be very careful how he moved now. She was more scared than it showed. All it would take would be a wrong move of his part...

"Do you want it?" he asked gently.

She nodded. "What do I have to do?" she said, wringing her hands.

"Is Willie out?"

"Yes."

"Good. It would be...embarrassing if he were to walk in while we are at it." he laughed, knowing that he tension was communicating to him. "I don't like to be watched when..."

"You'd rather not be caught by the husband in the act?" she giggled.

He was threading a fine line. He'd better be quick about it.

"Come sit by me."

She let him guide her to his side. She wished she could keep from shivering.

He put his hand on the back of her neck, noting the tension in her muscles.

"Try to relax" he told her while massaging her shoulders. "it will be better if you do."

"I'll try" the giggle that accompanied those words told him that she wouldn't succeed.

He made her forehead rest on his shoulder. Her neck muscles were taut. She'd be hurting later because of it.

He ran his lips over her neck, trying to find the vein.

"Are you done, yet?"

It wasn't going to be easy...

"I have to find the vein first..."

"I have small veins..."

"Give me your hand." he took it, noting how small it was. "When I find it, I will squeeze. Then you tell me to go ahead. I won't bite until you say it."

Having some control over the situation would help her.

"Only don't let too much time pass between my squeezing and your telling me, or I may lose the vein again."

She nodded. Maybe she was a little less tense now. He couldn't swear to it.

His lips found the vein. He moved his head ever so slightly so that his teeth would only need a slight push to pierce it. Then he squeezed her hand as he had promised.

He felt her suck breath desperately.

"Go ahead."

* * *

There were no lights in Angelique's home when Megan went in.

She wondered if Angelique could be inside. It was so quiet and dark...

For a moment she wondered if Angelique might have fallen into a time jump. Back to the past. Or the future, to see if she could get Barnabas that way...

Then she heard the weeping... a soft noise, like a rustling.

"Angelique!" she called.

The weeping seemed to stop. And there were some faint breathing sounds. She turned on the lights. Angelique was lying face down on the sofa.

"Honey! What is it?" Megan knelt by her side "What's wrong with you?"

Angelique just shook her head.

"It is Tammy, isn't it? I will fire her. I don't care if she throws the Civil Rights Commission at me."

"It isn't her.." Angelique sobbed "it is me."

"What is wrong? What happened?"

"It is the way I am. Nicholas is right about me. I am evil. I cannot change."

"Oh, no! Not that song again!"

But it is true. I am better at putting curses than at removing them."

"I told you before. You can choose the way you use your powers."

"But why can't I...?"

"Can't what?"

"Fix Dr. Anderson's neck. Make him well again. I tried to do it. tried it real hard... but I can't do it."

Megan let out a stream of four letter words.

"Megan!" Angelique was shocked.

"Sometimes I worry about you, kid." Megan said after she calmed down. "Sometimes I wonder how you managed to survive on your brains."

"Don't you what it means?"

"Yes. That once again you expected things to fall on your lap. You don't have the experience for that short of thing. Sister Kira herself does not try to cure that sort of injury."

"Why should it be easier to hurt than to help?"

"I might as well ask why it takes nine months to make a man, and only a second to pull the trigger to kill him. It is the nature of things. Anyway, I don't think you got your curses right, either, when you first tried them."

"But I tried so hard..."

"Tackling the toughest assignment you could find. Expecting to get it right the first time. You want it all _now_." Megan sighed. "Your problems start when you want something for nothing. You wanted to have Barnabas, without wondering what life with him would be like. You wanted Frank, but not enough to work at keeping him. Why bother when you can make it hard on your lovers if they try to leave you? Well, kid, it is about time you learned that there is no such thing as a free lunch."

Angelique dried her tears and nodded.

"And, by the way, you are late with your report. I expect it on my desk first thing at lunch."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Come in, Amy" Alma said "there is something I want to talk to you about."

"I haven't finished cleaning yet..."

"It can wait. What's a little more, a little less dirt?"

You had to hand it to Alma. She had a knack of making people comfortable. Even if you were just a summer chambermaid at her hotel.

"What is it that you want to tell me?" she asked, as she sat in Alma's old fashioned parlor.

"It's about Elsa. Do you want some tea, dear?"

"I don't think I should."

"Have it anyway. And some cake. I baked it myself."

Amy picked up a small slice "What is it about Elsa?"

"She likes you. You are the one who gave her the worms."

"I thought you wouldn't mind."

"I don't It keeps her busy and happy. I don't know where she got her brains, that girl. Not from her mother. She's a smart kid. but still there are a few things that her mother knows better than her."

"Like what?"

"She hangs around Barnabas too much. I don't like it."

"I don't think that you should worry." Amy said hotly. "he's never touched a child. "I've lived at Collinwood with David. So did Hallie Stokes and he never..."

"Of course, of course. I didn't mean it that way." Alma shook her head with an indulgent smile "I am not like those who listen to Quentin and Sister Kira...God, the things they say about him. And to think that people believe them. As if Quentin hadn't been living with a married woman, and hadn't thrown her over to marry into money...Oh, dear, dear. Where was I?"

"That you knew that Barnabas would not harm Elsa. You had to be patient with Alma when she got on a tangent.

"Yes. That was it. I know him. I'm in his book, by the way. It doesn't hurt a bit."

Amy recalled her own experience in the hospital. But the, she had hurt him first.

"But still you don't want him around Elsa?"

"Elsa has no friends of her own age. She's too smart for them." Alma shook her head. I mean, if she had I wouldn't mind her seeing him. A girl her age should have more friends than him. I mean, he means well, but he knows nothing about a child like Elsa. Elsa's growing into a woman, and she might get interested in him...in a certain way."

"She might have a crush on him?" Amy understood at last.

"I remember when I was Elsa's age. I had a crush on Elvis Presley. Of course, you don't believe me. When you noticed him, he was old and fat... And you had the Beatles..."

"And you think it is the same thing with Elsa and Barnabas?" Amy sighed. Keeping Alma from straying could be a chore.

'Yes. One day it is going to come out, and he won't have the faintest idea of how to handle it. There are things that only a mother understands. And he's never been a mother. Or a father, either. Or has he? Do you know if he ever had children?"

"He never did."

"How sad for him."

"But why tell me all this?"

"I want you to be Elsa's friend. You are older and can give her the benefit of your experience. She likes you. Would you do it, Amy? Please? Will you help this mother feel a little better?"

* * *

Kenneth opened his eyes slowly. "Julia?" he asked.

"I am here" Julia squeezed his hand, even if she knew he could not feel it. Kenneth was only a corpse attached to a living head.

"Do you know what's wrong with me?" Kenneth made his voice firm.

"You fell down the stairs."

"I know that." he licked his lips "how bad is it?"

"We...we don't know yet."

"It is not good, is it?"

"Kenneth!" Julia protested.

"I must have the truth."

* * *

Joe Haskell caught Chris picking up the newspapers from his desk.

"What are you doing?"

"I got careless and dropped these.." Chris invented.

"Careless?" Joe snorted. "It was Tammy who put these there. Sort of reminding you that you should be paper trained."

Chris shrugged.

"And you cover up for her. Same as you remove the nuts from my desk or the broom from Angelique's Why do you do it? Why not tell Megan and ask her to fire her?"

"If I give Megan that choice, she will fire me."

"Why?"

"Because Tammy does her job well, and brings money in. While I was hired out of pity."

Joe growled.

"This is a big opportunity for you, Joe. Don't blow it. Learn the business. Learn it well. Put up with Tammy. Make yourself useful. You will not regret it."

"I am the owner here."

"On paper only. You make trouble for Megan, and she'll replace you. She replaced me. Don't make waves. Keep plugging at it, and maybe one day you can really have an agency of your own."

* * *

Quentin sat looking at the sea. The waves kept beating one after the other...

They came, broke and left. And another came. And another. And it didn't help him any.

He looked at the sermon he was preparing "...a misguided tolerance for Satan's creatures.." That should get to Barnabas. It better did. Carolyn had promised him a raise in his allowance if he helped to destroy Barnabas.

Why did he let himself be used this way? He closed his fists. Why couldn't he find the willpower to tell Carolyn to jump in the lake?

From a distance, Roger studied Quentin. Why was Carolyn marrying him? It made no sense...

* * *

There was a strange man waiting for Sister Kira when she got to her room.

"You!" she said angrily "what are you doing here?"

"We have an emergency."

"Are you crazy coming here? What if someone saw you?"

"I am one of the many pilgrims that come ask for a healing. I need your prayers."

Kira shook her head. "Your carelessness will be the death of you yet."

"I had to risk it. We do not know how serious it is."

"What happened?"

"Casey is dead."

"Casey!" Kira was shaken. "How?"

"Plane accident."

"It was accident or arranged?"

"We are not sure. We have to move a lot of people just in case. And the people you placed must be put on ice, at least until we know it is safe. You must provide us with new ones."

"On such a short notice?"

"Do what you can..."

"All I have now are children. They can be used, but only for limited operations."

"We are losing one of our men in Washington. It isn't safe for Bob Woods to be where he is."

"It might be difficult to put another one. The Senator we used to place Woods wasn't reelected."

"Bob Woods' boss, Representative Evans? Maybe we could get hold of her. Find a skeleton in her closet."

"I know what the skeleton in her closet is."

"What is it?"

"Her former campaign manager is a vampire."

The man whistled "Hey, that's great news! We can recruit him and..."

"No." Kira shook her head. "It doesn't work that way. I know what you were taught. That it is easy to put the screws of a vampire to make him or her work for you. Well, I have had to deal with a number of them, and I don't want any more of it. Do you want me to describe what they are like?"

"What are they like?"

"First are the killers. They like to kill and expect you to take care of the corpses. Before you know, ninety percent of your time is spent getting rid of bodies that have nothing to do with the operation...Much easier to get rid of the killer, and make sure that he has nothing on you... Others are drug addicts. If you've seen one junkie, you've seen them all"

"But not all of them..."

"No, there are the cluck and the flakes. The ones who don't know how to operate. I spent three months with a character that kept on shooting photos without changing the film once.."

"But there are some that are good at it."

"So good that they are already working for the CIA."

"And what do you think the campaign manager is?"

"A flake. Martyr complex. If he were to find out there was a KGB operation under his nose, he'd sacrifice himself to destroy us There are two others. Derek is an addict type. His addiction is gambling on horses. And if Megan Graham is not CIA I'll eat my hat."

* * *

David stretched in the sun. It was still cold, with the wind. But it had been so long since he could do as he pleased...

And he still couldn't. In about half an hour she'd have to go back to loading boxes. Him! Roger Collins's son doing the kind of jobs you called Willie for!

He looked at his wrist with hatred. he had covered it with an elastic band. But he knew that under it were the wounds that kept him chained to his job as securely as he had been chained to that bed. He was still a prisoner, and not allowed to forget it.

But at least he could like on the beach...

* * *

Phillip caressed the saxophone. It had been a while since he had played it...

"Is that yours? Barnabas asked.

"Yes. I used to play it; Was rather good at it"

"What happened?"

"I got married and never had the time for it. Also Megan did not like to hear me practice."

"And now you are thinking of taking it up again?"

"If I could."

"Of course you can. I wonder if I can hear the way you sound on it..."

A knock at the door told him that he couldn't keep talking about Phillip's possible musical career.

"Stay here. I will go for it."

It was George. And he was carrying a wedding invitation with him.

"You got one of those, too?" Barnabas asked.

"Everybody got one."

"I don't like the idea of this marriage. I don't see it working out."

"Carolyn will put Quentin on an allowance, just like Roger, and control him that way" George shrugged.

"You don't know it."

"I got it from Derek."

"And how does Derek know?"

"He's watching Carolyn. After that gull story, I want to make sure that she doesn't spring any more surprises on us...and while Derek watches her, he cannot get in trouble, I hope."

Barnabas sighed. "I wish we didn't need to have to spy on her."

"Better than to let her hang herself.. Which she will do if she has half the chance."

"What was it that you wanted to see me about?"

"Make sure that your friends attend. I know that you can't. But if Iris isn't there, or Phillip, or Frances, Carolyn will use it to drive a wedge between them, and those who can't afford to defy her yet."

"Well, I think that I can convince them to go drink her champagne, and eat her food."


	4. Chapter 4

"Chapter 4

"You know that Bob Woods is leaving? " Maggie riffled papers as she spoke.

"Yes" Sabrina acknowledged. "A pity. He knew his stuff."

"We will have to replace him. And I have a hunch who you will recommend for it."

"You know that she can do it."

"How are you doing with Torrance?"

"I am putting the pressure on him. He should be feeling it soon."

"Good" Maggie smiled "You can tell your protégée that the job is hers."

Bob Woods cleared his desk. There was no danger of his leaving anything incriminating behind. It was a rule to keep the job separate from his real activities. All that Representative would know about him was that he was friendly, a good worker, and not very remarkable otherwise.

Of course, every now and then he came upon information that Kira could use. Like the stuff he had found out about Sebastian Shaw...Well, that was for Kira to decide what to do. His stint in the Longworth Building was over.

* * *

Barnabas could barely conceal his nerves as Xavier Davenport came in.

"What is it?" Xavier asked bluntly "bad news?"

"No. None of them yet."

"You expect to have some?"

"According to Murphy's Law, there should. " Barnabas was halfway to the liquor cabinet when he remembered that Xavier was a health freak. He wished he had stocked up on carrot juice.

"So what is it?"

"You offered me a job a while ago."

"I did. Several times."

"Does the offer still stand?"

"I do want you to work full time for me."

"I do want to accept your offer."

"Wonderful! Get out of that office before it turns your brain into tapioca."

"There is a problem, though" Barnabas wondered how to put it. "it has to do with...with job security."

"We are not going broke."

"No. But you might...find certain things about me and fire me because of them."

"What could I find? Have you been in jail? On drugs?"

"No. It is more difficult to explain."

"What could it be?"

Barnabas shook his head. "If I tried to explain it, it would sound self-serving. No, you better ask about me in town, and they will tell you all about it."

* * *

George took the cigarette that Tammy offered him. "It is a good thing that Barnabas can't see us now, or he'd lecture us on what this is doing to our lungs."

"I don't care what he says" Tammy shrugged "I don't care about anything from him."

George sighed "I guess that the feeling is mutual What happened between you two?"

"The usual, for him."

"It can't be. Every time I mention your name, he turns green."

"That's his problem."

"You must have been pretty nasty about it."

"Me? He was the one who had no manners. he told me that if I got sick on him, I'd have to pay for the dry cleaning. And he all but threw me out."

"You must have said something to upset him."

"I didn't have to say anything. He has eyes and could see what color I am."

"Tammy! Don't start again!"

"You told me that he comes from the eighteenth century. And that his family made money in the slave trade. They were still at it when he was...still normal. And slave trader instincts are offended when a piece of black ivory talks back to him."

* * *

Do you think I did the right thing asking Davenport for a job?"

"You had to try. This way either you'll get it, or he'll stop pestering you to quit the one you have." Iris ran her fingers over Barnabas' naked chest. "either way, you'll stop being tantalized by it."

"I hate the job I have" Barnabas said vehemently "I am not cut to be a bureaucrat."

"Nobody is."

"So where do they come from?"

"Brainwashing."

"I am not going to get it." Barnabas said "He'll find out about my...condition and he won't want me anymore. He cannot take away the money, but he won't want anything else to do with me."

"Don't anticipate him. He might well decide to keep you."

He shrugged.

"On another matter, are you going to the party?"

"The wedding? I care little for either the bride or the groom."

Barnabas sighed. "Carolyn wants to be my enemy. I do not want to be hers."

"But I know why I have to be there. For the same reason Phillip and Davenport will be going. So that Carolyn does not try to drive a wedge among the townspeople."

"I shouldn't ask you to."

"I am in this business deep. Don't forget how both Willie and I fronted in the negotiating stages. Are you sending David?"

"I thought about it. It might have done Roger good to see him again. But there's just so much that I can force David to do. He would be there, but I cannot guarantee his behavior there. In the end, it might be worse for Roger."

"It is a pity... If I had to choose, I'd pick Carolyn, rather than Quentin. You know, he's at it again."

"Preaching, you mean."

"Against you."

"I guess he figured out that I was the one behind Redwolf's scheme to keep the missionaries away from the tribe. it must have been a blow to realize that all that witnessing was only getting back Third World rhetoric. And when some of the missionaries began rereading history, and worse, getting interested in Marxist interpretations, it was just too much."

"Quentin's dangerous. He needs to rebuild his credit. And he might well use you for it. He'd love to drive a stake through you on national TV."

* * *

Kenneth stared at the ceiling He'd better be used to it, the thought truculently Staring at the ceiling was going to be his favorite activity in the future.

That was what the X-rays showed. No wishful thinking could prevail against the cold facts. No prayers to an hypothetical God could change that. No complaints as to how unfair it was. He had always known that there was no God nor fairness in this world. No meaning nor purpose.

He had to face the future. With therapy he might improve enough to operate a typewriter. Maybe write a book. A medicine book. He had many years of experience. He should share it with young students.

...Maybe a teaching position...

Julia came into the room, very pale.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

"Giving myself a pep talk." he sighed. "Somehow they sounded better when I was the doctor and not the patient."

* * *

Roger poured Nicholas a drink. He had found that Nicholas' tongue loosened up after some of the stuff was in him.

"I never really converted, you know." Nicholas confided.

"Aren't you afraid that Quentin will find out?"

"Quentin? Ha! He's another one. That God stuff is all right for the people he is trying to impress, but for him, it's just a hustle."

"So you don't think much of this religious revival?"

"Religion! They are all hypocrites. Starting with Billy Graham."

Billy Graham - Roger thought -He was Nixon's pal. And Nixon was destroyed while Graham went untouched.

How come he had missed the Graham connection?

* * *

Maybe she could use Representative Evans, after all - Kira thought, reading the last info from Bob Woods.

Time for that later. Julia Anderson was coming to see her, and it was important that she strike the right note with her.

She composed her face, wiping all traces of smugness from it. The fish had bitten the bait, but reeling it would take time and patience.

"Sister Kira?" Julia spoke, in a voice that could not hide a tremor.

"Dr. Hoffman?" Kira was now all sympathetic concern "How's your husband?"

"Not well." Julia shook her head, fighting tears back.

"It is so sad. " Kira said earnestly. "Your husband and I had our differences. I was saddened by his refusal to believe. But I never wanted this to happen to him."

"I know you didn't" Julia could not repress a sob What was she doing here? Could she really ask this woman whom Kenneth had fought so hard against, to heal him? Wasn't that disloyalty to Kenneth?

"Can I do something for you?" Kira insisted.

"No...You can't" Julia got up and walked to the door. "Thanks for offering."

Kira saw her walk away, hugging herself.

"You'll be back, Dr. Hoffman. And sooner than you think."

* * *

Roger stalked Quentin. Quentin was going to hurt Carolyn unless he did something about it.

Why did Carolyn want to marry him? Did she love him?

He had deceived her. As Billy Graham had deceived Nixon. And like Nixon, Carolyn would be destroyed.

But not if he could prevent it.

And prevent it, he would. Even if he had to kill Quentin for it.

* * *

Frances poked her finger at Davenport.

"You go hire Barnabas. You'll never be sorry you did."

"Look, Miss Jackson."

"Mrs."

"All right, Mrs. Jackson. I am willing to, but I want some questions answered first."

"What questions? What else do you need to know about him?

"What is it about him that he is afraid I might find on my own?"

"Nothing that would prevent him from doing his job!"

"Do you know how many times I have been told that already? Not to mention the ones who said that he's a pain in the neck in more ways than one, and they say it as if it was very funny. I am tired of getting the runaround.

"It is not something I can tell you. You'll have to ask him."

"He sent me to you to find out."

"He did? Why didn't you say so in the first place? He's a vampire.

"Please, Mrs. Jackson, do not make jokes."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Torrance went to the coffee machine. If he didn't need the coffee so desperately he wouldn't have gone. The sight of his fellow workers getting out of the way as he moved from his desk, the ominous silence that fell around him, those he could do without.

There were still a few people hanging around the coffee pot. But by the time he got there, they had all moved away. He filled his cup trying not to notice how their eyes were fixed on him.

"Damn you" he muttered "I am not leaking. It is all a trick of Representative Evans to put pressure on me. Why can't you believe me?"

They would not. All those leaks to Jack Anderson about funny business in the OSHA could have been engineered many ways. But Mrs. Jennings had made sure he was the one blamed.

He wished he could twist Sabrina Jennings' neck.

* * *

Xavier paced in Barnabas' living room. That Jackson woman must be crazy. And the rest of them weren't any better.

But why had Barnabas sent him to them?

"When will he be back?" he asked Phillip.

"It isn't dusk yet." Phillip said indulgently.

Xavier stared at him. "You too?" he asked.

Finally Barnabas showed up. One look at Xavier told him that he had been told the truth and that he didn't believe any of it.

"Have you been around as I asked you to?'

"You won't believe what I was told."

"I know it. It is true, by the way."

"What?"

"I guess you won't believe me until you see a demonstration." Barnabas knew that his job was on the line now. "No time to look for a mirror..."

Quickly he turned into a bat and flapped around.

Xavier screamed while Barnabas circled the room several times. Then Barnabas dropped himself on a chair.

"I guess you are not interested in giving me a job anymore." he said resignedly.

* * *

Roger waited, crouched behind the stairs. Would Quentin come down? When he did, he would trip over the string and fall to his death.

And Carolyn would be safe again.

A maid came, carrying a stack of plates in her arms.

Those wedding preparations...the house was in an uproar because of them. Preparations for a wedding that wouldn't come to be, because of death of the groom.

The maid turned around to go up the stairs, right into the string.

Quickly, Roger got out of his hiding place and called her.

"You called me, Mr. Collins?"

"These don't go upstairs. Take them downstairs."

The maid didn't argue. There was no point in arguing with Roger. You just said "yes, yes" and when he wasn't there you did what you were doing before he interrupted. you.

"As you say, Mr. Collins."

Once she left, Roger removed the string. That was not the proper method to kill Quentin. Not with so many people going around the house.

But he would kill Quentin, one way or the other.

* * *

Barnabas let Julia in. He was scared when he saw how she shivered in spite of the heat.

"Come in." he said to her.

He had never seen her so downcast before. She had always been cool and competent. And now she was going to pieces.

"I know that you are mad at me for releasing David. I really shouldn't have taken matters into my own hands."

"You did what you thought best." Julia said numbly.

That was the worst. If only she would scream at him. If she were to flare up, sarcastically "I didn't know you had a license to practice psychiatry in this state, Dr. Collins", as she had done when he had released Joe Haskell.

He hugged her, knowing that it did not help any.

"How's Kenneth?"

"Trying to be brave. Same as I am. And I can't...I can't anymore."

"You don't have to be brave with me. Just cry as much as you need to,"

She did. Harshly, violently, beating Barnabas' chest with her fist, and cried.

"Why? Why did he have to trip? It makes no sense...It just makes no sense.."

"I know it doesn't" he didn't try to stop her fists. She needed that. God knows that she had had to put up with worse from him.

Finally she fell on the couch, all tears gone.

"I'm better," she said "but Kenneth isn't"

"I know" he handed her some brandy "don't punish yourself."

"I wish that I could do something'" she shook her head "All my life I thought that the training and rehabilitation offered to...to people like Kenneth were adequate. But now that I need them, they are not enough. It is so different when you are the patient and not the doctor...when you no longer have all the answers...

Barnabas nodded. Julia had succumbed long ago to the professional disease of believing she was of a different species from her patients. But that was not the time to tell her that.

"Do you know Sister Kira?" she said suddenly.

"The faith healer?"

"Do you think that she could cure Kenneth?"

"I don't know. She could be a fraud. But then she could be the real thing."

"Do you think she could help Kenneth?"

"If she had the power, she could."

"Kenneth would never accept it. He's done nothing but fight her."

"Julia, I have been forced into immobility myself. And I tell you that I was willing to make any kind of bargain to get out of that. I suspect that it is the same thing with Kenneth."

"It is not the same thing. You don't know how Kenneth thinks."

"I know how he feels right now."

"You wouldn't mind if I went to Sister Kira?"

"Either she cures him and you have Kenneth back, or she doesn't and you look a bit foolish. It won't kill you."

"She and Quentin are this close. If she cures Kenneth, Quentin will have one more weapon to hit you with."

"Let me worry about that. You worry about Kenneth."

"I don't what to do that to you."

"Thank you for your loyalty. But no. You sacrificed too much for me. I don't want you to do that anymore."

* * *

Kira studied the old ruin. If her notes were correct, he great-grandfather Andreas had lived here in 1897. And Aristide's body would be buried not too far from there.

It took some time to find the grave, but she did. Patiently she gathered the bones and stored them in a burlap sack.

Brought back to life, Aristide would prove a very valuable operative. The fact that she had power of life and death over him would make him obedient, and most important, the FBI wouldn't be able to locate a set of his fingerprints anywhere.

* * *

Something pulled him there. He hadn't been to that section of the cemetery for a long, long time. He knew that he had kept away purposefully. And that no longer could he do so.

It was a small headstone. Just the name: David Woodard, and the dates.

Barnabas felt himself go down on his knees, without willing it. As he had done in front of the firing squad not long ago.

"Dave" he said. And he stopped. He had no right to call him by his first name.

"I am sorry." he managed to say. And nothing else. Just three little words that could solve nothing and had to be said nevertheless. He re-rehearsed the arguments he had given himself. But he couldn't say them. Not today. Maybe later. Maybe never.

He knew that the tears were running down his cheeks. "Maybe I deserved to lose that job" he told himself "Maybe I deserved worse. Maybe the firing squad should not have spared me."

* * *

Maggie pushed back the chair. "That's it for today. I am bushed."

"So am I" Sabrina nodded sympathetically.

"Well, that's the only way to get reelected."

"You could lose the election. Then you could rest."

"In days like these I envy the bastard I got out of this job." Maggie admitted "he's probably sitting by a creek, fishing, not having to worry about anything..."

"How's Gladys doing?"

"Quite well."

"I am sorry to hear that. I miss her. She was a good investigator. But she was so hungry for a promotion..."

"Here she has to report to you. In the liaison group she is her own boss. Can't argue with that.."

"No, can't argue with that."

Maggie offered her a cigarette "No thanks," Sabrina said.

"When are you going to stop acting as if Barnabas was over your shoulder? Come on, one won't hurt you."

Sabrina lit up.

"Torrance coming up all right?"

"Yes." Sabrina sucked on her cigarette "I don't know. I don't like the idea of doing this to him."

"You have put the screws on other people before."

"Yes, but they deserved it."

"Just keep at it."

* * *

"So you are not giving him the job after all?" Frances didn't hide her scorn from Xavier "for a little thing like that?"

"I wouldn't call it a little thing."

"He's already doing it, for no pay. Do you want to keep having him for free?"

"I didn't say yet that I wouldn't hire him." Xavier said defensively "I said that I would think about it."

"In other words, don't call us, we'll call you."

Xavier scurried out. God, that woman could make him feel guilty. And why should he feel that way? It was Barnabas' fault for leading him on. Vampirism was not something that you could overlook easily.

"And he had the gall to be skeptical about my U.F.O. sighting."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

It was cold. Or maybe the cold came from within himself.

He had come back to David Woodard's grave, not knowing why he needed to do it now. Not knowing if there was any point in it.

"George said that I was not legally responsible. Temporary insanity, he calls it. But I don't know...Do you think that was what was the matter with me? Do you really believe that?"

He didn't believe it. It had been first degree murder, and Julia was forced in the role of accomplice.

Julia...he saw her pale, tear-stained face again. He had promised her that he would be her friend now. He had kept that promise. But what kind of friend he was if he could not help Julia?

"It could have been Julia I killed. Or Willie. It could be Willie here instead of you." he shivered at the thought of Willie dead. "but it was you. If this hadn't happened we could have been friends."

He was on his knees again and ran his hand over the ground. "I don't know if you care to have me here. If you'd rather I didn't come... They are trying to get me a job with Davenport... They don't know about this" he added bitterly "if they did, would Frances fight for me as she does? Would the others?"

* * *

Frank held the glass tightly to keep himself from throwing its contents in Sabrina's face.

"Call your dogs off me."

"Are you going to give us what we want?"

"I can't"

"We cannot do what you ask, either."

"Everyone in the office thinks that I am leaking to Jack Anderson. I cannot make them understand that it was information you got moths ago, and which you are leaking so slowly, because it is not much... No, you made me look guilty. And they treat me as if I got leprosy or worse.."

"Well, you know the conditions."

"I cannot fink on my friends."

"They are not that much your friends if they condemn you without a hearing. How come they are so willing so suspect you?"

"I have a reputation for honesty." Frank admitted.

"While they don't"

"There is corruption everywhere" he hated it when she put him on the defensive. "OSHA is not the only place where that happens."

"And you cover up for them."

"I don't"

"Yes, you do. You, with your honesty, and your reputation, are just a front for what really goes on in there."

"And all you care is to clean up government?" Frank shouted "No, you just want to wipe out every social advance made in this country. There's fraud and inefficiency in the military, too. There's waste in the oil business. But nobody goes after that. No. Only to those things that threaten social privilege. Only those laws and statutes that say that workers are human beings. That's what you people are really after."

* * *

Joseph Lilley laid on the sun. It was pleasant there. Soon his deal would come through and he should be able to do much more of this.

If he could avoid being killed by the KGB until then.

Well, he was on his guard. He had a gun always with him, and he could see anyone who came near the resort.

Most important, he had covered his tracks well.

He was going to sell his information to the Government and get a good price for it. Then he could really enjoy himself.

* * *

"Satan is our enemy. And he has sent his emissaries to lead us astray. We must not let a misguided tolerance deliver us into the hands of the Enemy. First they ask us for civil rights for perverts. Then it will be for creatures who cannot walk in the daylight..."

Quentin was not wholly happy with the phrasing. That was what Carolyn wanted, all right. But did he want it? Did he want to endanger Barnabas that way?

...But it was true what it said. Barnabas couldn't look at a cross. And he had killed Carl...

If only this hadn't been forced down his throat...

Roger stood out there, in the terrace, as the sky darkened around him. Soon Quentin would come for a walk, as he did at this hour. And then...

The statue was loose. Time had done it. With a little push it would fall, and then it would be over... He just had to wait.

As the darkness intensified, Derek fluttered over him. What was Roger doing alone there? He didn't trust Roger. He was an homicidal maniac, if he ever saw one...

He'd better keep an eye on him.

Disgusted, Quentin went for some fresh air. It was a full moon outside. At other times he would have been terrified of it. But now...now he wished he was back in those times, when there wasn't a Carolyn Hawkes to pull his strings.

Roger crouched behind the statue, watching Quentin's movements.

Quentin meandered, keeping away from the spot where the statue would fall. Roger cursed under his breath.

"He is going to kill Quentin" Derek thought "I knew it. Just released from the nuthouse, and he's having another go at it."

And he had never liked murder.

He could prevent the killing now. But Roger would try again. He might try in the daytime...

Unless...

Quentin was getting close to the bull's eye. Roger bit his lips. A little more...

Derek changed shape and threw a stone past Quentin. It worked. Quentin stopped cold and looked around. He threw another stone,, to make him move as far from them spot as possible. And this time, Roger turned around and saw him.

As he changed shape again, Derek could not repress a smug smile. Whatever Roger chose to tell Carolyn, he'd have to explain what he was doing there. And with his conspiracy theories, Carolyn would not pay attention, anyway.

Most importantly, Roger would stop stalking Quentin to come after him. Well, he would be on his guard, and so would Delia. They would spring a trap on Roger...

* * *

The children clustered around the bus. Some were laughing. Some took their excitement out in tears. And some thought that it was nowhere as exciting as TV. Kira surveyed them. They would serve their purpose.

Buffy Duncan was there too, to help with the children. Also there was the driver of the bus. But forgetfulness could be arranged for them, if they did not see the main action.

"Can't we go pick blueberries?" Joanna asked.

"Yes. But only when we get there" Buffy said.

"Are we there, yet?" Another child asked, from the rear.

"No. not yet."

"I want to do it now!" Joanna pouted.

"Now, Joanna, be a good girl."

Yes, Kira thought, she needed Buffy to handle the children...

Joanna whimpered a little bit more, but finally Buffy got her calmed down.

"I don't know how you do it." Kira said.

* * *

Xavier's phone rang. It had been ringing since that night when Barnabas had demonstrated to him...what he was.

Would this call be pro or con? - Xavier wondered - he should keep count of them. If he wasn't expecting a call from Washington, he'd get the phone off the hook.

"Mr. Davenport?:" the voice at the other end of the phone was eager "I want to congratulate you."

"For what?" he barely could keep the impatience out of his voice.

"For taking such a stand against that...that thing. I only wish there were more people like you."

"Thanks, lady."

"My name is Mrs. Miller. Mrs. Herbert Miller."

"All right, Mrs. Miller. I appreciate your calling me" It was an effort not to shout. "I am expecting an important call. Would you mind hanging up and not tying the line anymore?"

Sandy hung up, and Xavier returned to his accounts. But in less than two minutes there was another call. And not from Washington, either.

* * *

"Joshua fought in Jericho, Jericho, Jericho..." the children's voices attacked, in all the meanings of the word, the old spiritual with relish.

They were certainly out of tune. Some jumped too high, some too low. They missed the beats, and they mangled the lyrics, or just mumbled them.

But no one could deny their enthusiasm. And it was that enthusiasm that Kira wanted. Soon that enthusiasm would serve to play a game. They would play Joshua at Jericho.

* * *

Phillip Todd came into Xavier's office.

"I guess that you are pleading for Barnabas, too." Xavier said resignedly "I might give him the job just to get some peace and quiet around here."

"I thought that you might be interested in knowing what kind of person he really is."

"I think I know that already."

"You don't. Not at all. He was the one who did whatever was needed to bring you here. He had all the dealings with the Indians that were needed. He almost got killed at one point, because he offended the local shaman."

"He evidently wasn't killed."

"No, but he believed he would be. When they thought they would kill him, he wrote to all his friends. I kept the letters. I want you to read them. I want you to think what kind of man could write these letters."

He placed the papers over Xavier's desk.

"Read then and then decide. That's all I ask you."

* * *

"Here children" Kira said. "Here we are."

There was a small commotion in the bus, as all the children tried to get out at the same time. It took Buffy's skills to negotiate an orderly descent.

"I gotta go to the bathroom!" a voice from the rear said.

"There's one here. Just be a little patient!"

"I can't hold any longer!"

"Yes, you can."

"He's gonna pee on the bus" Tommy said, laughing.

"All right!" Kira pushed until she reached the complaint.

"I'll take you out."

She led him out of the bus until he could find by himself where to go. While she waited for him to come out again, she looked across the street. There was a man lying on the sun, watching. somewhat bored, the children.

Hiding herself behind a bush, Kira lifted the binoculars that she had carried along 'for bird watching' and looked at the man.

It was him. Joseph Lilley. The man she had come to kill.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

"So children, we have read the story of Joshua" Kira told the children. "What have we learned?"

"Joshua was a tough hombre" Tommy said, while playing with his toy gun, pretending to be a cowboy.

"Very good, Tommy. What else?"

Edna lifted her hand.

"Yes?" Kira asked.

"What does 'put to the sword' mean?"

"He killed them, silly" Tommy said "Like this. Bang! Bang!"

"They had no guns in those days." Arthur, the bookworm, corrected Tommy.

"You mean he killed all those people? All of them? Even the children?"

"They were heathens. They were wicked people." Kira saw that she had a problem there, so she amended the Bible. "they didn't kill the children. They adopted them and raised them to obey the Lord."

Joanna just wished that the Bible lesson was over so that she could go collect blueberries.

Buffy felt her eyelids become heavy. She couldn't help it. The sun up in the sky made her drowsy.

Kira watched Buffy from the corner of her eye. Soon she would fall asleep, just like the driver. She'd better make Edna sleepy, too. When they fell asleep, she could do what she had come to do.

* * *

It was a good day to be out, Delia thought. Too bad that Derek couldn't share it.

But then, on days that she had to work late, and come back home with aching feet, she wished she cold be like Derek and fly home.

There was a rustling noise near her.

Roger Collins - she thought - Derek had said he would be after her.

She knew what to do next. Leisurely, so as not to arouse suspicion, she got up from her seat and began walking home.

She walked slowly, to make it easy for Roger to follow her, and also making sure there were witnesses to dissuade Roger from attacking her too soon.

She reached her home. She went in, leaving the door half opened behind her.

Roger, outside checked that no one was watching, then went to the door. He tried it, and found it open.

Delia saw him come through, but acted as if she was too engrossed watering the plants to notice. She tensed up. Those Karate lesson she had been taking better work now.

Roger threw his hands around Delia's neck.

"What is Derek doing with Quentin?" he asked " tell me or..."

Delia made a frightened noise and slumped forward.

"I am going to get an answer" he insisted. "You better tell me.."

A sharp blow to his stomach left him out of air. Then another to his genitals. And when he doubled up in pain, Delia hit him over the head with a clay centerpiece.

Checking that Roger had nothing broken, Delia took the hypodermic with the sedative, and made sure that Roger would stay out of trouble until Derek woke up.

* * *

The children were brandishing the toy swords that Kira had given them.

"You are now with Joshua, about to take Jericho."

"Yeah!" the children shouted. Kira smiled. They were now in her power. They would do as she asked, and remember only that they had played game.

"But first we have to catch a spy. A priest of Ashtoreth. He's hiding here." she stole a glance at Lilley, lolling in the sun.

"What do we do?" This was from Tommy, still playing with his gun.

"In the Bible, Rahab helped Joshua. We need a Rahab." Her eyes went to Joanna, whose face and dress were stained by the blueberries she had been eating on the sly.

Lilley would never suspect her.

* * *

Joseph Lilley watched the children play. The looked so earnest, and so cute with their wooden swords. When you are that young, you never doubt that toy swords can slay real dragons, and that you will always win. And you believe that dragons are always bad, and you are always good.

* * *

"What are you?" Kira asked the children.

"Lambs of God!"

"Who am I?"

"Sister Kira, whom we must obey!

* * *

Joseph Lilley saw this little girl come up to him, with tears and blueberry stains on her face.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

"I am lost." Joanna sobbed.

"Lost? You came with the others, didn't you? They are here."

But they weren't there anymore.

Joanna sobbed.

"All right, I will take you to the police."

"No!" she clung to him.

He realized that he could hear children's voices not too far away.

"I will help you look for them."

* * *

The children waited under the bushes, their swords clasped in their hands. A couple of them stood far apart, talking and making themselves heard, if not seen.

At a distance from them Kira watched.

They wouldn't fail. Yet, since this was the first time he used them, she could not help being nervous.

Lilley should not see her. If he saw her, he would recognize her, and might manage to escape.

She looked back. Buffy, Edna, and the driver were sound asleep.

* * *

Lilley carried the weeping Joanna in his arms. "We will find them" he reassured her.

They shouldn't be so far away...there were muddy tracks everywhere.

The children saw him approach. Grace one of the girls whispered "here he is, the priest of Ashtoreth He is going to sacrifice Joanna to Moloch

"Joanna! Joanna! she raced running towards Lilley.

"Didn't I tell you we'd find them?" Lilley tried to set Joanna down, but she clung to him.

Grace caught his legs and tried to pull him down. Then more children came and some caught his arms, some his legs, some just the cloth of his sweater.

"Children! Children! Let me go! Stop! Stop!"

He stumbled and the children jumped on his back.

"Enough is enough!" he said angrily.

Then he saw her.

"Kira Petofi!"

Kira kept smiling as he tried to reach for his gun, but was unable to because Joanna had planted her feet firmly there.

"Kill! Kill!" the children stabbed Lilley with their swords, which had enough of an edge to cut. Tommy put a rope around his neck and pulled.

Lilley twisted, tried to shake them off, to get up. But he was wounded, and the rope was crushing his windpipe.

"Murdered by children" he thought as he tried once more to push them away.

He was lying down, and they piled on top of him. Weakness stole upon him. There was a red mist in front of him...

He still twitched a bit more, then he was still. Kira went to him and checked that he was dead. Then she turned to the children. They were splattered with blood. But children get so filthy by themselves on field trips that she'd have no trouble explaining the need to wash them off. She just covered the stains with mud, and herded them towards the bathrooms.

Later, when Buffy, the driver, and Edna woke up. they children would remember nothing of this game.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The cellar was damp. The musty odors of its walls clung to Kira's nostrils as she watched Aristide's body slowly reconstruct itself.

It shouldn't be hurried. Slowly a glow enveloped the skeleton and slowly flesh began growing on it.

At least there had been no missing bones. It would have been possible to reconstruct Aristide even that way, but not so easy.

Loose connective tissue was now forming itself, making the bones look wet. Then it was cartilage. Aristide's sharp nose again pointed upward.

Then the muscles, the veins, and the beating heart...

When finally the skin laid itself across the body it was late. But Kira did not mind it at all.

"Aristide" Kira said.

Aristide opened his eyes. Slowly the blank expression erased itself and some sort of recognition came.

"Do you know who I am?" she asked.

Aristide shook his head, as he was still unable to speak.

"You used to work for my great-grandfather."

Aristide lifted his eyebrows.

"Count Andreas Petofi. You were dead and I brought you back to life. As long as you do what you are told, you'll live, you understand?

* * *

Torrance worked in his apartment alone. It was better this way, without poisonous glances all around him.

Of course, it hadn't been wise to take those papers home with him. They figured that there was one reason, and one reason only why he'd want to do that.

"Damn it!" he broke a pencil in frustration There was no use kidding himself, He was a marked man now. He'd never be promoted. They would fire him. Or they would exile him to the boondocks.

If he had any sense, he would get out of the Civil service now.

He wondered why he kept resisting Sabrina. Was it pride? Stubbornness?

"I am saving OSHA from the neo-conservative axe" he said.

But was it worth saving? He reviewed every case of fraud and bribery that he had been aware of. He remembered a suicide, not long ago.

Yet there was a need for OSHA. Corrupt as it was, it did a good job.

And it wasn't worse than any other Washington office.

* * *

Delia stood triumphantly over a bound Roger

"You did not need to tie him that way," Derek said "doping him should have been enough."

"I wanted to make double sure." Delia smirked "are you going to take care of him now?"

"All right, All right."

"Are you going to bite him?" Delia's eyes shone "you have to be careful where you do it. Carolyn might see the scars."

"She might think he did it with Megan."

"Too risky. Why not bite him inside his upper tight?"

Derek tried to hide his shock. "That will not be necessary."

"Well, do it."

Delia's tendencies were getting out of hand...

"I don't think that I'll bite him. I am no good at it, anyway."

"So what are you going to do?"

"He's still doped, isn't he? Maybe if I work over his mind now I can convince him that you are spying on me, and that you two should share information, And that he should not try to kill Quentin until you two know more."

"And how are you going to do that?"

Derek's expression changed . He put both hands in the air and made V signs with them. "Let me make one thing crystal clear. I used to do a good Nixon imitation a while back. I think I still got the knack."

* * *

"You still don't want to go to the wedding?" Barnabas asked David.

"You can always make me go." David said while putting sunburn ointment on himself.

"Your father would want to see you."

"My father never cared for me."

Barnabas' memories went back to David as he had first known him. Yes, he had had problems with his father then, but...

When he had first known David, he had made plans to murder him.

It could have been David instead of Dave in that grave... He had been so willing to squeeze David's throat...

He had nearly killed Maggie. And he had made plans to kill Burke Devlin. How many times had he tried to strangle Julia? and Willie...

Why couldn't he have failed with Dave as he had failed with the others? And why did he have to drag Julia into it?

"Did you say something? David asked.

"Uh? No. Just like you shouldn't have stayed so long in the sun. You look like a shrimp.

"What do you know about sunburn?"

"I haven't got one in years. Surely my experience should count for something."

"And by the way, how do you manage to shave without cutting yourself? I imagine it must be tough without a mirror."

"Practice, my boy, practice" his face set again. "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"The drugs."

"It was one of those things." David evaded. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Eventually you must."

"I am certainly glad that the full moon is over. I don't like being chained downstairs."

"You take Julia's cure and you'll never need to again."

"Isn't there another way?"

"You could ask Megan to teach you to handle it, the way she taught Chris. But I wouldn't advise you to. If you did, you'd have to have a vasectomy, too. And I imagine that one day you'll want children."

"And if I don't like any of those and still don't want to be locked in the cellar?"

"Then you'll die" Barnabas made his voice hard. "Or be confined in an institution for the criminally insane First time out, you'll kill somebody. Second time, they'll hunt you down with silver bullets."

* * *

Kira guided Aristide to her cottage.

"You'll have to stay here for a few days, until I believe that you can come out safely."

Aristide nodded.

"Well, we are not going to have any problems, after all." she lit a cigarette. "there's food here" she opened the refrigerator. "As much as you want. And I'll teach you how to make coffee."

Aristide put her hands around her waist.

'Hey! What are you doing?"

"You said you wanted the same services your great-grandfather had."

'Not that one " she pulled Aristide's hands away and laughed "so great-grandfather Andreas had a taste for pretty boys."

"While you have a taste for pretty girls?"

"What I have a taste for is no concern of yours."

Aristide gave a slight shrug, relieved "You are the boss " the sexual servitude that Petofi had imposed on him had never been to his taste. "What do you want me to do?"

"As soon as you are able to, we are going to arrange a kidnapping. You will have to use the children for it."

"What children?"

"The ones I teach Sunday school to. Don't look at me that way. I can make those children kill for me, and then forget what they've done."

Aristide whistled.

"You don't believe me?"

"Your great-grandfather never tried anything like that."

"My great- grandfather was just a gifted amateur. I am a pro. I find out where the money is, and mass produce it. Bending minds would have seemed a cheap trick to him. Maybe there are more interesting stunts. But they don't pay so well."

"And money is all you care about?"

"Money makes the word go round, dear Aristide. As you must know yourself. Do you know what I make? Killers. Forgetful killers. They live seemingly normal lives until a certain word or picture triggers the response. Then they go out and kill whoever needs killing. And then they forget again, and go back to their normal lives."

"And the children?"

"The children are killers. For them the trigger is, when they are together, the son "Joshua fought in Jericho."

* * *

"Kenneth" Julia stroked her husband's forehead "I saw Sister Kira a few days ago."

She waited for his answer, holding her breath.

"I hope you didn't ask her to cure me, old girl."

"No, I didn't. But I got thinking...what have we got to lose?"

"Just my self-respect. I chased her out of the hospital. What would it look like if I begged her?"

Julia closed her fists. If Kenneth wasn't so stubborn. If he didn't always put his principles first...

"She said that she was sorry you were hurt."

"How nice of her. That woman is a danger to anyone. If she can get to you, who knows better, think of what she can do with ordinary people, how she feeds them false hopes and prevents them from getting real help. Of course, every now and then she lands on a psychosomatic ailment. or something that goes away by itself... But that's not the case with me.

* * *

George put his hand on Barnabas' shoulder. "I thought I might find you here" he said.

Barnabas nodded, still on his knees.

"For how long have you been coming here? No, don't tell me. I'll tell you. It was after you saw Julia going to pieces, wasn't it?"

"Yes." Barnabas acknowledged "But how?"

"I have eyes. I can put two and two together. Can I sit down?"

"If he doesn't mind me, why should he mind you? You were his friend."

George bit back his answer that Dave Woodard had been more than his friend, he had been his lover. But that was not the time to discuss it.

"I knew that something like this would happen the moment Kenneth had that accident." he paused for effect. "Kenneth reminds me of Dave in many ways. I think that you see it, too, at least subconsciously. So does Julia. And now Kenneth's paralyzed and Julia's blaming herself for it. A perfect setup for a nervous breakdown. Or should I rather say two nervous breakdowns?"

"If that you say is true."

"It is true. Julia is going to need you more than ever. But unless you get a grip on yourself, you are going to be worse than useless.

"It is unfair. Why should she suffer for it? Why can't she just blame me for it?

Because things just don't work that way. I am serious. You better get that guilt out of your system pretty quick. I don't care to find myself in charge of two emotional basket cases."

"Maybe I should end up a basket case."

"No!" George shook him vehemently "you don't deserve it!"

Barnabas felt so weak, so lifeless. George realized that he could rape him, and that he wouldn't' t resist.

"How can you say that, knowing who is buried here, and how he got that way?"

"Because you are too fine to be throw away like that! And so's Julia. You have to believe that. Julia's worth fighting for. And if you won't fight for yourself, fight for her. Fight like mad for her!"

"I should. I promised her that I would be her friend, after...after I took her friend from her." There was no conviction in Barnabas' words. "I...I don't know how to do it."

"Barnabas" George caught his head and forced it down on his shoulder. "When was the last time you cried your heart out? Do it now. For God's sake, start bawling and get it out once and for all."

Barnabas didn't know where the sob came from. Only that it tore through him, throwing him violently against George. And then another came, and then another.

"There" George held him close "You are always lending your shoulder to others. It is time you borrowed one for yourself."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

There were flowers everywhere in Collinwood, of all possible varieties and colors, and their scents mingled in the air.

Carolyn Hawkes, nee Stoddard, soon to be Carolyn Collins had spared no expense to make her wedding memorable. That was an event everyone would be talking about for years.

She was going to let those hicks know what a real party was really like.

Iris munched on a caviar canapé. It her opinion, caviar was overrated. If it was as cheap as sardines, it wouldn't sell, because, unlike sardines, it didn't taste so good.

She saw Chris Jennings by the punch bowl, looking miserable, and went to him.

"What's wrong, Chris.":

"Just talked to Carolyn."

"She is dressed more like a hooker than like a bride."

"She...she said that she could give a job to Amy, as a maid."

Iris sighed. She knew how Chris' middle class sensibility was hurt by the fact that Amy took in cleaning jobs.

"I am glad that its Quentin that she's marrying." he said bleakly. "I know that he's my grandfather, but I can't stand him."

Joe Haskell moved around the guests. He wondered how many of them still remembered him as the nut from Wyndcliff. Megan had told him that it would wear off in time, but it still hadn't happened.

"Pardon me, sir?" a maid came to him. "Are you Mr. Haskell? The one at the detective agency?"

"Yes."

"That must be very exciting work" the maid said, enthralled.

"Not really" Joe resisted the impulses to puff himself up "you need to do a lot of thinking."

Kira wandered outside. This party, like all parties, was a waste of time. She should be with Aristide, arranging for Sebastian Shaw. Instead she had to be here, watching that dolt of Quentin get married.

Roger wondered if David would show up...he wasn't there, but maybe later...

"He's marrying her for her money, you know" Nicholas said to him."

Roger turned around and looked at Nicholas severely.

"It doesn't matter." Nicholas continued "she doesn't love him either."

"You are drunk!" Roger said in disgust.

"And you are crazy. Tomorrow I'll be sober, and you will still be crazy."

Phillip studied the glass centerpiece, amused.

"You like it, don't you?" Carolyn asked.

"How much did you pay for it?"

"If you have to ask, you can't afford it. It is genuine."

Phillip shook his head "It is a fake. I've been in the antique business and I can tell you the factory in New Jersey where they make these."

Carolyn went pale.

"But you area not in the business anymore. You are just an errand boy for Barnabas/ But then, he's a genuine antique, all by himself. Early American."

George cornered Quentin. "I hope you know what your are doing, marrying her."

"I know" Quentin flashed an ingratiating smile "this is Holy Matrimony. A sacrament leading to the formation of a family unit."

"Go tell that to someone else. You are just the latest catspaw in her feud with Barnabas. I just hope you don't get burned by it."

"You are wrong.

"She is a strong hater. And her hatred makes her stupid. Remember the maid she fired because she found fang marks in her throat? Well, Barnabas pulled enough strings to get her a better job at the Environmental Center. He came out like a prince, and she came out as a bitch." George bit his canapé with relish. "That was very stupid of her."

Xavier looked with disgust at the food offered. How could people eat that junk? They were eating themselves into an early grave. Cholesterol, processed foods, additives, alcohol. It was a good think that he had remembered to bring a Granola bar.

Buffy came to him. "Mr. Davenport, I want to tell you how much I admire you."

"What for?"

"Standing up to that...that thing. Not letting him have the job."

"Thank you, but I don't think I deserve it. I think I will hire him, after all."

"You?" there was hurt in Buffy's eyes "Why?" she managed to say.

"Lady. I've been getting a lot of opinions on how to run my business lately. If you want to tell me who I should or shouldn't hire, why not tell me what kind of power generator to buy? Who should I subcontract for building materials? I am running a business and I don't want to go bankrupt. All you well wishers and busybodies, pro and con, will not help me any if I go broke. Whether or not I hire Barnabas Collins depends on whether or not he can do the job."

Tammy looked out into the seashore. It was that way that the ships had come. Carrying molasses, carrying rum. Carrying slaves in the Middle Passage.

All the horrors from that came to her. And it had been on that human misery that Collinwood had been built.

Angelique came behind her. "Nice view?" she asked.

"I don't think that it was so nice for the slaves on the ships."

Angelique's face hardened. "You have chosen the wrong person to tell that. I lived in that period. I starved in that period. I had to service sexually the men of the house in that period, or be fired. And slaves could not get fired. Being a slave meant that there was someone who worried that you didn't starve."

Quentin came to Carolyn and took her hand. "The justice of the peace is here. Better look like a loving couple."

"All right, but remember your place."

The guests were herded to the end of the room, while Roger led Carolyn forward.

Iris looked at Carolyn again. That dress of her. A swirl of white lace. And since she was a widow, not a virgin, there was red satin under the lace, a very low décolletage, and a figure hugging cut.

With envy, Iris recognized that Carolyn was one of the few women who had the body to wear that dress and look good in it.

The marriage ceremony was nothing out of the ordinary. If Nicholas were to keel over drunk, or Roger start accusing everybody of framing Nixon, that would have been worth noticing. But none of that happened. Just the usual formulas.

"You may now kiss the bride" the judge of the peace said.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Xavier was impatient by the time Barnabas showed up. He had made his decision at last. And that Duncan woman at the party had helped him make it.

He took another drink of carrot juice. It was the right decision, he knew. But he still couldn't help feeling uneasy about it..

"You said you had an answer?" Barnabas tried to hide his nervousness He felt giddy and light after all that crying the night before.

"Yes. Sit down, please."

"I understand why you wouldn't want me. It is not an easy thing to understand."

Xavier interrupted him. "I've been getting all kinds of advice lately. And none of it addressed the issue. What are the pluses, and what are the minuses of hiring you?

"And?"

"On the minus side, I get nervous with you around."

"I understand."

"On the plus side, you can do the job. You already have the contacts. You want this venture to succeed. I cannot think that you'll go on working for me without pay forever. And by the way so many stands up for you, I don't think that you'll go on working for me without pay forever."

Barnabas waited, saying nothing.

"The pluses outnumber the minuses. You are hired."

"I am?"

"Yes. And I got your first task. I want to give a talk about U.F.O.s. You make the arrangements."

Barnabas groaned inwardly, but said nothing. Davenport was paying him for it.

* * *

George relaxed in his office. He had drunk too much at the party, he realized. he should go to bed, except that, due to some quirk of his physiology, alcohol sometimes gave him insomnia.

How was Barnabas doing today? He saw him as he had been last night., moaning piteously against his palm, shivering, curled up, unable to move by himself. He had had to put him in his coffin when dawn came, since Barnabas seemed incapable of doing so by himself. And he had kept moaning, helpless, as dawn finally broke and sent him into unconsciousness.

"I hope he's all right now. It would be a pity if after coming all this way, he would go off the deep end."

If would be so much easier, he thought, if he hated him, instead. If he did not know him so well, and cared about him. Then he could do the self-righteous thing. In fact, he had sworn to do it when he found out that Dave was dead, and he had not been willing to believe it was a natural death.

"And instead I fell in love with his murderer. Crazy, world, isn't it?'

"Yes. It is crazy."

George turned around, surprised. Dave was standing there, looking amused.

"Dave..."

"George." Dave smiled indulgently "you've grown, have you?"

"Yes."

"And you never married."

"It is not my style"

"Do you regret it? If I hadn't seduced you, you'd have a normal life now."

"You didn't seduce me. and I was already doing it with other boys."

"But still you could have..."

'I am happy as I am. As you were. Leave it at that." straightened up "Tell me, am I doing the right thing? About Barnabas. He's changed. You would not recognize him now."

"I know. I realize that I was at fault too. I was confronting a mental case, and I couldn't think of anything better than to call him evil and loathsome. Completely contrary to recommended procedure." he shook his head. "And I called myself a doctor."

"He was insane, then, wasn't he? He wasn't legally responsible..."

"If there was ever a candidate for the funny farm, it was him."

"But why won't he admit it?"

"Admit that he was a Twinkie? A nut?" Dave shook his head "that he went around in a funny hat, pretending to be Napoleon?"

"I don't mean that."

"That's what insane means in the vernacular. It is a question of pride for him. He'd rather go on a guilt trip than let the stigma of mental illness attach to him."

"But that is stupid!"

"I never said that he was smart. But then, neither would you, in his position.. You don't find many people willing to say that they belong in the cuckoo's nest.

"I worry about him."

"You should. He is in a bad place. He's got all the memories back. He knew that he had done many wrong tings, but never with full details...He could keep separate from them. Now he has to integrate who he was with who he is now. All of a sudden, while being a spectator at someone else's breakdown. He's going to need some serious TLC."

"Will he make it?"

"He's tough, and he's survived quite a lot. But still, he will hurt like crazy until he is done."

* * *

Torrance got out of bed reluctantly. The thought of another day in the office made him ill.

He stood in front of the mirror, ready to shave.

"If I didn't have an electric razor, I could slash my throat."

His eyes in the mirror were haunted. He hadn't seen eyes like that since...since..

Since Megan Todd had dug her fangs into his neck.

But it wasn't the same. Not at all. - he recognized tiredly - at least then I knew that I was in the right. I could hate her with a clear conscience.

Why was he holding out? What was he fighting for, anyway? His career? People did the worst things with that excuse. The Department? It was falling by itself, destroyed internally by corruption. His friends there? they were not friends and he knew it.

So why not give up?

Give up to the neo-conservative vultures? To the Me generation?

Was it pride? he asked himself did he wish to go down holding up the liberal banner to the last?

Maybe he would be lucky after all. Maybe the Skylab would fall on him.

* * *

Amy and Elsa spent the morning beachcombing.

"What do you want to do with all the shells?" Amy asked Elsa.

"We could make jewelry and sell to the tourists."

"I don't know how. You better start a collection of them."

"You could learn. That's what Mao Tse Tung said "what you don't know, you learn."

"You quote communists now?" Amy laughed.

"On odd days. On even days I quote fascists."

"Quote a fascist"

"I can't this is an odd day. Come tomorrow."

"Who do you quote on national holidays?"

"Hubert Humphrey." Elsa showed Amy the shell she and in her hand. "Did you see this one? A shell glued on top of another?"

"Very curious, yes"

"And this one is a periwinkle. I they stay long enough underwater they drown."

"How can a snail drown?"

"Glub.. glub...glub..."

"It can't be."

"I read it in a book. A biology book."

* * *

Phillip strode into town. It was nice to do so. And now that he would be able to play the sax in one of the cafes during the summer, he would be able to make some extra money.

It was a good thing that Barnabas couldn't be aware of anything between dawn and dusk. He could practice as long as he liked without getting on anyone's nerves. Megan had told him plenty about it when...

No. Don't think about the past. It is over now.

He was amused thought. Megan hadn't wanted to listen to him play. Now, if she wanted to, she'd save to pay admission first.

He found himself standing in front of an antique shop. A wave of nostalgia caught him. His shop had been like this one...

He came in, as if pulled by an invisible string and looked around...

Inside there was a bottle. With a ship inside.

"Mr. Todd, are you sick?" the salesgirl asked as the color drained off his face.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"So you are pleased with the arrangements?" Barnabas tried to sound professional. Which wasn't easy, as they were making plans for Xavier's U.F.O. lecture.

"You don't like this, do you?"

"I..."

"I would think that with your experience you'd be more broadminded. In fact you are a sort of U.F.O."

"I am an I.F.O. Identified flying object." Barnabas managed to laugh "All right, I do not mind seeing things in the sky. But those people who are joining cults that say that flying saucers will come to Earth to guide us and save us, and what not..."

This time it was Xavier who laughed. "It has nothing to do with the evidence. Only the people involved. Well, for the record, I don't like them either."

"You don't?" Barnabas was surprised.

"You mean you took me for one of those nuts?"

Barnabas nodded.

"And now your next question is, if I am not one of them, why do I do what I do? Well, there is something odd going on, and it should be investigated, that's all."

"And what do you expect to find?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't be investigating, would I? Now, let me make this perfectly clear..."

"Crystal clear, as Nixon would say."

"All right. Crystal clear. People have world views. They are frameworks that serve them to organize what they see and hear. They fit the facts in those frameworks as they can. But if they don't fit, then so much the worse for the facts. Every now and then someone decides to rebuild the framework. But not often. It is much easier to pretend that the bothersome facts do not exist."

"You mean the people who deny the existence of U.F.O.s?"

"And the ones that join the cults you mentioned. And the fundamentalist Christians who insist that U.F.O.s come from the devil. As for myself. I am just a guy who has connected some facts that do not fit."

* * *

Aristide reviewed the steps that Kira had outlined. If things according to plan, kidnapping Sebastian Shaw would be no problem.

But if they didn't...

It was using the kids that disturbed him. There was something about it that he didn't like...Like how much could you trust a kid for that kind of job.

Also, he wasn't such an expert at kidnapping. Sure, he had helped Petofi hold Barnabas, but that was an easy job. Sebastian Shaw could prove a different proposition.

Still, he had to try. Like the old man, Kira was generous. But like the old man, she could be unforgiving if you tried to disobey her.

* * *

"Joshua fought in Jericho, Jericho, Jericho" Kira hummed. The children out there would hear her and come to her.

She waited, unhurriedly, preparing the wooden swords for them to see. But they would not carry them this time.

She wanted Sebastian Shaw alive and in one piece.

* * *

The smile in Sabrina's face told Frank that she had already read the newspaper. And if he needed confirmation. she was holding it folded at the right page.

"What is it now?" he asked. As if he didn't already know.

"Did you read the paper today?"

"Just the headlines."

"Maybe you should read this." he forced the paper under his eyes. He had to reread it, much as he hated it.

"Fifty dead. In a place that passed the OSHA inspection less than a month ago."

"It wasn't my section" he stammered.

"Is that what you are fighting to preserver? Is this worth all the pain you are going through?

* * *

Sebastian Shaw picked his mail. Nothing but junk mail and bills there. Maggie was getting late with her check again.

Well, they would find a way to remind her of that...

He opened one of the sales announcements. He liked the sweaters. And some of those things would look good on Roxie.

Maybe the two of them could go shopping later.

As he was making coffee, he noticed the children playing ball outside. He munched on the cookies. Chocolate chip..,.. Roxanne had remembered to buy these for him...And she had cooked for him...

He had tried to tell her that she need not do that, but she wouldn't bulge. "Left to yourself you'd live on junk food and worse."

There was only one way to keep her from cooking. If he didn't need food, she'd stop.

He rubbed his neck. He had only to tell her that he was willing. That would certainly make her happy. Yet, if he didn't like it, if it proved to be a mistake, it couldn't be undone.

The ball crashed through the window.

He picked it up, among the broken glass. A few more inches and the glass would have hit him...

The children were gone. Out of sight. Probably hiding in the bushes, waiting for him to come chasing after them.

He shrugged. Children will be children. He took the broom and swept the broken glass, so as not to cut himself when he decided to walk barefoot there. Later he's see how to get that pane fixed.

He kept drinking the coffee, and had barely finished it, and was about to wash the cup when the doorbell rang.

It was one of the kids. Being held in a tight grip by a man with a cruel look in his face.

"I understand that my son broke your window, and that he ran away. I want him to apologize to you for that."

Sebastian felt pity for the browbeaten kid and hatred for the self-righteous father. "There's no need to" he said.

"No. He did something wrong and he should learn not to do it again."

"I think that he knows that already" Sebastian knelt to pat the child's head and reassure him.

And, as he did, Tommy caught him by the collar and forced his head down.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

"Not a sound" Aristide hissed, while pressing the point of his knife against Sebastian's throat "Not a sound Mr. Shaw."

They made him walk to the chair. Aristide pushed him on it, brutally, and held him while Tommy tied his hands.,

"You teach your child to do this?" Sebastian asked futilely.

"He isn't mine." Aristide said, while pushing a folded cloth into Sebastian's mouth. "We will take a look around to see what we can find. Then we'll ask you some questions."

* * *

Delia listened patiently to Roger.

"Quentin says that they are going to disrupt the flying saucer lecture that Davenport is giving."

"Is he?" Delia decided to tell Derek that as long as she was doing his undercover work, she should be paid for it. Listening to Roger could be extremely tiresome."

"The way he talks about it, it is important. But I cannot figure out why."

"Then you should attend the lecture. Find out what it is about. Maybe you'll find out why they are so afraid of it."

* * *

"Well, what have we got here?" Aristide looked at the placid face of Roxanne. "Another one of those."

Well, those he knew how to handle. With a couple of twigs and some duct tape, he fashioned a cross, and using more tape, fastened it over Roxanne's heart.

"All we need now is some ropes, kids."

In a few minutes Roxanne's coffin was wrapped like Christmas package.

"You got a pretty girlfriend." he said to Sebastian. "And don't count on her rescuing you. We are taking her along."

It would have seemed impossible for Sebastian to look sicker, but he did, at those words.

"But we have a problem getting her out of here. We cannot take her as the car is across the street. I need the garage keys so that I can bring my car here.

There was a bare flicker of hope in Sebastian's eyes as he shook his head.

"So you want to be a hero?" Aristide shrugged "Well, be my guest. Tommy, remove his shoes."

When Aristide finally brought the car into the garage, Sebastian no longer could use his feet. But he didn't need to. Aristide carried him over his shoulder, like a potato sack and threw him on the floor of the car, where the children sat on him all the way to Collinsport.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Torrance kept his eyes fixed on the papers he was reading. Nothing of it made sense to him. Yet he kept reading doggedly. As long as those letters kept dancing in front of his eyes, he didn't have to think.

Sabrina would not let him go. She had smelled the weakness in him.

The phone rang. Probably her, again, keeping the pressure.

He took the receiver off the hook and laid it on the table, so that he didn't have to listen to it. But he couldn't leave it there. It might not be her. It might be something important.

Knowing that he would regret it, he picked it up.

"Frank, are you there?" It was Barnabas, straight from his Maine boondock.

"Yes. I am here. So it is you...I was afraid it was somebody else..."

"What happened? I could not get to you."

"It's the phone. It's been doing this kind of thing all day."

He didn't have the heart to tell Barnabas how the screws were being put on him.

"You remember that you told me that I could work for Uncle Sam or work for Davenport, but not both?"

"You ditched Davenport?"

"No. Uncle Sam"

"You didn't!"

"Try to understand."

"You cannot leave like this!"

"I wasn't' any good at my job."

"You were getting better at it. You have conditions, I told you."

"For pushing papers? I am as good as I am ever going to be. And my best is only mediocre. You can get around the paperwork and get things done. I can't. All I can do is circulate forms."

"That's just excuses. Davenport bought you off. There's more money in private industry."

"And less job security. Davenport could go bankrupt. And if that happens, I will be out."

"But why? You were sure you could do so many things with your job..."

"That was before I got swamped."

"But I taught you to survive that."

"I wasn't a good pupil. I do not make this decision lightly. It came one day when, after filling form after form, I realized that I couldn't recall anything about them. Couldn't figure out what their purpose was. I just filled them. I was a form filling machine. And it scared. me. I could understand what had happened to Eichmann. They put forms in front of him, until he was just a form filling machine..."

Frank grunted.

"I didn't want that to happen to me, Frank. I know that you went through a lot of trouble to get me here. I am truly grateful. But I cannot do it anymore.

* * *

"Are they down there?" Kira asked.

"Both of them" Aristide answered "No chance of either of them getting loose."

Kira went down the steps to the cellar. She was in her tourist costume. Bright, garish clothes, dark glasses, a big hat. Fashions that accentuated her hips, instead of disguising the way her usual clothes did.

Anyone who saw her wouldn't recognize the prim and proper Sister Kira in that fat and vulgar tourist. That lady getting on in years and hunting for available young men...

Sebastian twisted as he heard the steps coming down. if he could only loosen his bonds...

Nearby laid Roxanne, immobilized by the cross on her chest, and with adhesive tape over her mouth.

"So you are the ones who have been bleeding Representative Evans?" Kira bowed mockingly towards Roxanne "If you pardon the pun. What did you have on her?"

Sebastian made frightened noises through his gag.

"Don't strain yourself" Kira said "you won't slip off those knots that easily."

Roxanne looked at her with hatred.

"You care for him, don't you?" Kira spoke to Roxanne again "you care for him a lot." She put her fingers through Sebastian's hair and yanked.

"I thought so" she said as she saw the shiver run through Roxanne's body "Well, now I am going to talk business with you. Just remember that if you are not cooperative, I'll let Aristide have fun with him. Do you understand? Blink once for yes, twice for no."

Roxanne blinked.

Kira pulled the tape off, none too gently. "Let's talk."

Roxanne licked her lips "What do you want?"

"Your cooperation. At this moment we can just force the information out of you and then kill you. Nobody knows that you are here. Getting rid of your boyfriend's body won't be too difficult. And getting rid of yours easier still."

"Do we have a choice?"

"You can work for me."

* * *

Buffy's feet hurt. She knew that somebody had to stay out there, distributing leaflets. But why did it have to be her? She knew that it was an unchristian thought, and admonished herself for it.

"If Our Lord could endure the Cross, then I can endure my aching feet."

"The truth about U.F.O.s" she said while handling a leaflet to a bored passerby "It is all a snare of Satan" she explained "here it explains it."

Inside, Roger watched Xavier up in the stage. Why would Quentin want to disrupt this talk? Was there any connection?

He waited eagerly for the lecture to illuminate him.

Xavier went to the next slide.

"This one I took myself. Of courses, the outline isn't clear..."

"That's just a plane with landing lights on." a heckler said.

"You think so?" Xavier said. "So did I. But there were other factors."

"Like what?"

"Electronic disturbances in my car radio. Also my car went dead. You see, U.F.O.s have the property to disrupt electric and electronic equipment."

Roger's jaw dropped. Electric and electronic disruptions. Of course! That was what happened to the eighteen minutes and a half of Nixon's tape. The 'sinister force' that General Haig spoke of.

"They also affect compass needles." Xavier continued.

No wonder Quentin thought of him as a danger. he was there, explaining how exactly Nixon had been framed...

And what part Barnabas played in all this? Barnabas had brought Davenport to town, had arranged for this lecture...

Never mind. He would learn that later. Trembling with excitement, he heard the rest of the lecture, savoring each minute of it.

* * *

"You look better now" George commented to Barnabas.

"I am better. You were right. I needed to have a good cry. I still cannot digest it, but I won't fall apart when Julia needs me. And that's all that matters, isn't it?"

George nodded. "I saw Dave here, several days ago."

Barnabas tensed. "You did?"

"He does not wish you ill. He agree with me that you were not fully responsible for your actions. Or the way he put it, you were a prime candidate for the cuckoo's nest. He blamed himself for goading you, instead of just spreading the bullshit until the twinkiemobile came."

"The twinkiemobile?" he managed to recognize the term. "so he too thinks that I was...insane."

"Yes, though he used slang terms for it."

"Nuts? Bananas? Meshugga.?'

"Kind of like that."

Barnabas shrugged. "Maybe I could use that in the trial. But Julia never could. The least they would do is take her license away."

"That's why it must never come to light."

"I will protect Julia, if it comes to that. I'll take the fall for both of us."

"At this moment, exposure is the least of Julia's worries."

"I know. Maybe I'll convince her to talk to Sister Kira again. If there is a chance to get Kenneth out of that bed, she should not waste it. If Sister Kira fails, she will know that at least she tried. Later, maybe we can talk about it. Maybe I will have to make her believe that I stole that drug without her knowledge."

* * *

Frank sat at his desk. A pile of paper to his left. A pile of paper to his right. And all around him, a poisoned silence.

The only difference between the two piles was that one of tem had marched before his eyes, and bore marks on it attesting that he had seen it.

But had he, really? He pulled one of them at random. Had he really read and approved that? What did that gobbledygook mean, anyway?"

Was Barnabas right? Was that how you ended up?

The newspaper Sabrina had forced on him was still there. Fifty men. Some with small children.

Maybe one eight year old boy who couldn't understand why his father had to die. Why it was cheaper for his father to die instead of providing adequate protection...

He cursed himself under his breath. The reason he had gone into the Civil Service was to prevent such things from happening. Yet here he was, covering up. Saving his dignity by saying that he himself had not taken a bribe.

No. He wasn't corrupt himself. But those around him were, and he did nothing about it.

How come? How had he let himself be trapped? He looked with hatred at the papers again.

Was that how they did it? They made you fill paper after paper until the monotony of it turned your brain into tapioca? Until you didn't care anymore except that the forms were filled properly?

Men were created by forms, because forms couldn't move between building by themselves.

He had laughed when Barnabas told him that. But now...now he believed it was true.

The papers in his desk were living things. They were more alive than the zombies pushing them around. They grew, they multiplied, they would inherit the Earth.

They were the parts of a giant amoeba, always shifting its shape, always accommodating for one more person to swallow, and then excreting the finished product: a bureaucrat.

Keep the paper circulating. Make sure that the forms were properly filled. On the line, not going over the margin. Both sides. Make them ready by the deadline...

If that was all there was, why not give in to Sabrina? What sense did it make to resist? He was holding the wrong banner in the wrong lines.

What could he lose if he gave in? His ideals? An idealistic bureaucrat is a contradiction in terms.

The face of Megan came before him. What wouldn't he give now to have her to blame. What wouldn't he give not have to acknowledge his own blame...

And if he gave Sabrina what she wanted, what would he gain? Job security? A job that ground your soul day by day? To have his co-workers speak to him again? There was not one of them whose conversation he craved.

Representative Evans, or no Representative Evans, this section was going down the drain. If the cheerful cutters didn't put it out of its misery first, internal corruption would do it in.

And the worst part was that it didn't have to die. A tighter review, two or three key firings, some streamlining, and the division would be good for another fifty years at least.

Why did he dream? No one would save it. No one cared enough to.

Unless that was his price for collaborating with Representative Evans.

And how to keep Representative Evans at her word? The word of a politician. The most worthless commodity in the market.

How could he force her to keep her word? Threatening to expose Barnabas? He wouldn't be able to do it.

...But Megan Todd owed her a favor. She had said so herself...

He was going to collect on it.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Sebastian had barely time to hide when Julia knocked at Kira's door. She could recognize him, and if she did, Aristide would hurt Roxie, in Washington.

Kira wiped off the satisfied smile from her face before opening the door. She had finally landed her big fish.

"Sister Kira..." Julia said, trying not to sob.

The words of her prepared speech ran through Julia's mind, but she couldn't say them.

"Can I help you, doctor?"

Julia nodded.

"How can I help you?"

"You can cure Kenneth.

Kira feigned reluctance "I... I don't know if I can do it..."

"I know, Sister...He's opposed you, threatened to send you to jail"

"It isn't because of that..."

"Please help him." Julia went down on her knees and embraced Kira's legs "you are his only hope now."

"I have never before tried to heal a broken neck" Kira helped Julia get up.

"You can try. Please, sister, please."

* * *

Maggie stood in front of the phone, alone in her apartment. On her lap laid the postcard she had gotten from the mailbox.

Sebastian...Sebastian again. She shouldn't have paid him off in the beginning. he only got hungrier.

Yet, it seemed so simple. Just a little money ever month, no political favors asked...Surely, anyone who she might sent to deal with Sebastian could equally well find out what was hiding, and then she'd find out that she had merely exchanged blackmailers...Only that the new one would want much more than what Sebastian got.

The phone rang.

"Did you get the postcard?" Maggie recognized Roxanne Drew's voice.

"Yes. This is not going to work...

"If you want to say anything, come here. Now. The address is in the postcard. And make sure nobody is following you.

"Wait!"

"I will be expecting you. You better be here." Roxanne said, then hung up the phone.

"Is she coming?" Aristide asked Roxanne.

"Yes."

"And you know what you have to do."

"I know it."

"Remember that if you fail, Sebastian will suffer for it, and Sister Kira is not softhearted. Do you want to know what she'll do to him? Maybe she'll let me have him." With these words he put his arms around her waist.

"Don't touch me! Roxanne tried to pull away.

"You don't want me to tell _her_ that you are not cooperating."

"I thought you liked men. And...and Maggie will be here any minute."

"I got time for a quick one." he said pulling at her clothes "and if you don't play along it will be Sebastian that I'll have. Kira promised him to me."

"Aren't you afraid that I might bite you?"

"You are too smart for that."

* * *

"So Roger's now looking for U.F.O.s? George asked Derek.

"Yes. That should keep him out of more serious trouble."

"How did you convince him that Delia was on his side?"

"I took advantage of the fact that he was doped up to do a Nixon imitation."

"A Nixon imitation?" George was amused "I'd love to see you sometimes. Well, however you did it, you handled it pretty well."

'Yes. I kept Roger from killing Quentin. But somehow...I do not like to think what he might have done to Delia."

"She could take good care of herself."

"Yes. We were lucky. But you and I know that the next one that Roger gets his hands on might not be able to defend herself, or himself."

"I know. Roger is a potential homicidal maniac. But we cannot prove it, and in this legal system he is innocent until proven guilty."

"The system stinks. Roger should be put away."

* * *

Maggie mounted the steps. Second floor, first door to the left...Fear oppressed her. For some reason she dreaded what she might find there.

But it was only a blackmailer. A small-timer, at that. The fact that Roxanne was a vampire did not change that.

It was not as if Josette's dress was waiting for her there...

Roxanne opened the door only a tiny crack.

"Are you alone?" She asked Maggie.

"Yes."

"Good. Come in."

"You two are getting too big for your britches." Maggie blustered "You are now getting all you can get. All that you'll ever get from me."

Roxanne opened her mouth, pulling up her lips.

"Oh, no! You are not pulling that stunt!" Maggie pulled out a cross. "Not this time, you..."

Aristide's hands clapped over her mouth, and pulled her arm back.

"Do it now! Quick!" Aristide said.

Maggie kicked at Aristide's legs, bit his hands, tried to claw at Roxanne, but she could not keep it from happening.

"It will be easier if you don't fight it." Roxanne said, as she bit down on Maggie's throat.

As she felt her will bend to Roxanne's, Maggie was aware of a salty taste in her mouth. She had bit Aristide hard enough, and was drawing blood...she was drawing Aristide's blood as Roxanne was drawing hers...

"Well, she's under now." Roxanne said "You can let her go."

"You took your sweet time" Aristide looked at his hand in distaste.

"She fights better now that she's off the stuff. Better bandage your hand before I go for seconds there."

"Very funny. The bitch cut me real hard."

"Did she?" Roxanne was amused. "Maybe you should have a rabies shot."

"Never mind. We have to play the tapes for her."

Soon Maggie was lying on her back, headphones on her ears and a viewer fixed over her eyes.

"You can start the tape for her, now."

* * *

Angelique smiled shyly as she saw Frank come into the office.

"Frank! You've come!" Frank looked tried and rumpled. And he had come.

"Oh, hi, Angie" Frank kissed her absentmindedly "is Megan in?"

"Megan? You came for her and not for me?"

"Come on, baby. First, it is business with her, and second, we were never that serious, you and I."

"So you want to see Megan."

"Please get me through.. I cannot waste much time."

"All right, she's free now."

As Frank went into Megan's office Tammy asked "is that your boyfriend?"

"Used to be."

"What happened? He got scared you'd turn him into a toad?"

Angelique closed her fists. Don't react, she told herself. don't let her know she's hurt you.

Frank sat in front of Megan, feeling dejected.

"You have come for that favor I owe you?"

"How do you know?"

"Elementary, Dear Watson. I am not one of your favorite people. And you look desperate. Desperate enough to come to me.

"Why do you have to know everything?"

"That's the only way I can keep this agency in the black.. Now, what is he problem that brings you here?"

"Can you put pressure on Representative Evans?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"Make sure she does not destroy OSHA. She wants to have these hearings on TV about the corruption and inefficiency there. I want to make sure that she does not cut the meat along with the fat. OSHA should come out strengthened, not destroyed.

"And you want to make sure that Maggie does that."

"You are the only one I know can put real pressure on her."

"All right, Mr. Torrance, you got it. You go to her, and say that I am backing you to the hilt, and that if she does not keep her word, she'll answer to me."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

"Aristide just called" Kira told Sebastian "He said that everything went well."

"Is Roxie all right?" Sebastian asked nervously.

"Why shouldn't she be? Get to work on the next tape."

"The next tape?"

"The old one will come back in the mail."

"Why do you want it back? Wouldn't it be better to destroy it?"

"I want to study them and see how they can be improved. Well, enough of that. I have to go heal Dr. Anderson."

Break

David watched as the sun set. If felt so peaceful there. He could almost forget those nights locked up in a cage...

Almost, but not quite. As he couldn't forget the grip Barnabas had put in his mind.

Yet he had to admit that it wasn't so bad. In theory he might be as much a prisoner as he was while still chained to the bed. But when you counted that since his release he had had sunburn, hangovers, indigestion from too much of the wrong foods, and, as he suspected, VD from that fast number on the beach, you had to admit that the conditions of his imprisonment had improved considerably.

If only he didn't have to be locked up on those nights...

* * *

Kenneth heard the steps coming towards his room.

"Julia?" he asked.

For one moment, resentment against Julia's healthy legs filled him.

He controlled himself. That wasn't right. Things were bad enough for Julia without his pettiness.

Yet, he was tiring of being noble at all times. To keep a stoic front, even when nobody was watching him. Not even an hypothetical god.

If there was a God, or a Devil, he'd sell his soul to be able to hold a scalpel again...

The door opened, but it wasn't Julia. it was Sister Kira.

"Sister Kira?" he couldn't hide his surprise. "have you come to see what an All-Merciful God did to me?"

"You shouldn't say those things" Kira shook her head.

"Why not? If God is as merciful as you say, why does he allow for conditions like mine to happen?"

"He sends me to bring relief to the suffering."

"Big deal. Out of one thousand sufferers you help one. An improvement of one per thousand. Not the best way to demonstrate an all-embracing, all-consuming love."

"The Ways of the Lord are not for us to understand."

"The Ways of the Lord are too zany for any reasonable person to make heads or tails of."

Kira bowed her head. "Lord, forgive this man."

"You pray for me?" Kenneth asked venomously "that's your weapon, all right. Say, instead of forgiving me, has it ever occurred to you to find out whether I might have a case?"

"You do not understand."

"I understand only too well. Biblical Christianity. Long on Apologetics, short on apologies. Preaching humility. Too busy to practice it... Screaming persecution each time you are not allowed to persecute someone else."

"I've been persecuted myself."

"You don't know what real persecution is like. Tell me, has ever a University Professor been fired for being a Christian, as Bertrand Russell was for not being one?"

"I was jailed. And beaten by the secret police." The part was true. The beating had not been pleasant, but it had established her cover.

"The secret police? " Kenneth looked at her again. "Where are you from."

"Rumania."

"You were..." Kenneth tried to adjust his thinking "you were really persecuted?"

"Yes. I learned what atheism meant."

"You think that you'd have better luck with the Greek Orthodox Church?" Kenneth snorted "After all, religious persecution was invented by Christians. Why have you come here, anyway?"

"To heal you." she said in a tone she thought sounded properly selfless and heroic.

"Heal me? You can't." In spite of himself, he was seized by a mad desire that she could do it.

"Nothing is impossible with God."

"There is no God. How did you get here, anyway? I thought I had you barred from the hospital."

"Your wife let me in."

"Julia?"

Hearing her name, Julia came in, pale and haggard.

"You let this fraud in?" Kenneth wais with hurt in his voice "how could you?"

"Let her try, Kenneth, please let her try."

"Julia" Kenneth shook his head sadly. "do you actually believe it? You know that faith healing does not work."

"It works, if you have faith." Kira said.

"Please, Kenneth, let her try."

So Julia had reached that stage. Just as he had described in his last article for 'The Humanist' magazine. How desperation could drive sane, rational, people to believe in quacks.

But if Julia had given in, he wouldn't.

'Julia, old girl. I know how you feel. Don't you think I want to get out of this bed? But she can't do it."

"No one else can. And it might work."

"Trust me, Dr. Anderson." Kira leaned forward, a slight smile on her lips.

"Sister...er... do you mind if I talked to my wife alone?"

"Please, Sister."

Kira went outside. It wouldn't be long before Dr. Kenneth Anderson decided to give her a try. Even if only to show her for the fraud she was.

"It isn't going to work, Julia."

"How do you know? You haven't tried it

"You really think that she can do it?" There was hurt pride in his words. "I thought you were an intelligent woman."

"Kenneth, I've seen many things that you'd say were impossible."

"Like ghosts?"

"Like ghosts."

"You telling me you saw ghosts, too? Come on, Julia."

"But what can you lose if you let her try?"

"Don't you see how she's using you"

"She's not using me. I asked her to come. I begged her to."

"You begged? Wonderful. Now everyone will know that my own wife went down on her knees to beg that fraud...she's using you, all right."

"Please, Kenneth, just for once."

Why did Kenneth have to be so stubborn? Why couldn't he admit to himself how much he wanted to walk again?"

"She's already got her propaganda value out of you, old girl." Kenneth sighed. "I might as well let her try and fail. Call Delia in."

When Delia came, there was a scowl on her face. "what's that sour prune doing outside?" Delia didn't like Kira. She was out to make trouble for her and Derek.

"She decided she can cure me."

"Cure you?" Delia almost snorted. But then she thought that deep down Kenneth was hoping for it. She would, in his position. "And...?"

"I want to show her off. I want to try and fail. Will you be a witness?"

"Gladly."

"Kenneth...there is no need."

"She's got you hoodwinked, old girl. It is not easy to face facts. But you have to." he gave off a short laugh "who better than I would know how difficult it is? But unless, " he was speaking for himself now "unless we admit that there is no hope, that we have to do with what's left, and try to make the best of it, we will only make it worse. Don't you think that I want her to be right? But it won't help any. Let her in."

"All right, Sister" Kenneth said belligerently. "I am going to let you try."

"You will not regret it."

"There is nothing psychosomatic about my neck. I've see the X-rays." Kenneth grumbled as Kira placed her hands on his shoulders.

Kira muttered. Meaningless words, to make them believe she was praying. In the meantime, her hand, then one who had inherited the power from great-grandfather Andreas, did the healing.

"It is done, Dr. Anderson." she announced, rising.

"Is that all?" Kenneth turned "I told you that it wouldn't work."

And as he said this, Kenneth spread out his arms widely, to fully show his opinion of Sister Kira's powers.

* * *

"What is it like to have a weird brother?" Elsa asked Amy.

"Chris isn't weird. You shouldn't call him that."

:But.. Are you mad a me? I didn't mean anything."

"You shouldn't say those things. It hurts people."

"Grown-ups do it all the time."

"Grown ups can be very cruel. I've herd the things they say about Chris. I don't want to hear them again."

"But Sister Kira says those things. She teaches the children. My mom does not want me to go with her."

"Your mother knows that Sister Kira isn't good for you. The things she says about Barnabas...or Chris..."

"But everyone says things about Barnabas. Mom says he is a busybody."

"It isn't the same thing."

"Why isn't' it the same thing?"

* * *

Sabrina did not like the way Frank looked. She expected to see him broken. Instead, he looked smug.

"I have a proposition to make." he said.

"You will cooperate?"

"I will testify as the hearing. But I want a commitment from Representative Evans first."

"What do you want? A new job?"

"No. I want Representative Evans to help rebuild OSHA, not destroy it."

"I don't know if I can promise it."

"Well, then I won't testify."

"All right, you have it." Sabrina shrugged. Promising did not cost anything.

"I hope you keep it. If not, Representative Evans will hear from Miss Graham."

"Miss Graham?"

"Used to be Mrs. Todd before the divorce. She's been backing me up on this." He smiled as he saw Sabrina go pale. "I understand that she can really hurt Ms. Evans if she put her head to it."

"You trust her?"

"She owed me a favor, and she always pays her debts. You should know that."

It was a pleasure to watch Sabrina's congested face and listen to her strangled voice. He would savor every gesture of hers. Taste her defeat slowly.

Too bad that he couldn't see Representative Evans reaction later.

But then, you can't have everything..

* * *

Can Kira Petofi be stopped? Will Julia crack or will Barnabas be able to help her? Where will Roger's interest in U.F.O.s lead him?

Stay tuned


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